Elizabeth Taylor: 'The world needs you to live!', Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert - 1992

20 April 1992, Wembley, London, United Kingdom

Don't worry. I'm not gonna sing.

We are here to celebrate the life of Freddie mercury, an extraordinary rock star who rushed across our cultural landscape like a comic shooting up across the sky. We are are here also to tell the whole world that he like others we have lost to AIDS died before his time.

The bright light of his talent still exhilarates us even now, that his life has been so cruelly, extinguished. It needn't have happened. It shouldn't have happened. Please. Let's not it happen again.

Each day around the world, 5,000 people are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Just last week, it was reported in the United States alone that there are 9,000 actual cases of AIDS among teenage and young adults with thousands more that probably don't even know they're infected.

I'll get off in a minute. I'll get off. I have something to Say!

There's 70,000 people in this stadium tonight. Look at yourselves, look at how many you are! In just two short weeks there be as many new infections as there are people here tonight.

Please don't let it happen to you. You are the future of our world. You are the best and the brightest. You are the shining light that will illuminate a better world tomorrow.

Protect yourselves. If you have sex, every time you have sex, use a condom. Every single time, straight sex, gay sex, bisexual sex, use a condom, whoever you are. And if you share drugs, don't share a needle.

Tonight we are here to raise money, to help those living with AIDS. Tonight, we're here to send them a message that we care,

But I'm also here with a message for each and every one of you. Protect yourselves. Love yourselves, respect yourselves, because I will keep on telling you until you do. And I won't give in. And I won't give up! Because the world needs you to live!

You see, we really love you. We really care. God bless.

Gabrielle Jackson: 'I was not weak, I was not a hypochondriac. I was a woman with endometriosis', Address to the Pelvic Pain Victoria Symposium - 2019

23 November 2019, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia

When I was 19, I had a skiing accident and suffered a compound fracture of my sacrum. Orthopaedic surgeons seemed fascinated by this injury, each doctor in turn from the Thredbo clinic to Canberra hospital to Sydney telling me they’d never seen a compound fracture of the sacrum like this on a young person. They did lots of tests and x-rays and crowded in my room to talk about it. No one doubted I was in pain and I received lots of attention and sympathy. Cards crowded my room in the rehab hospital.

When I was 35, I was run over by a train in India. I had a broken shoulder, some sprains and torn ligaments and lots of cuts and bruises. It was very painful and everybody around me infinite supplies of sympathy.

I had also lived with severe period pain since my early teens and had been diagnosed with endometriosis at age 23. Sure, there was sympathy after my two laparoscopies but it’s not a pain I talked about much and was not always noticeable to people around me.

Despite these serious injuries and significant pain, I didn’t really pay much attention to different kinds of pain until I was recovering from my second laparoscopy to remove endometriosis when I was 38. The surgery was successful – I’d be warned there was a risk I would have to have a bowel resection and maybe lose an ovary, none of those occurred. But I was also told I’d be better the next day – if not, the day after. I wasn’t. I was in tremendous pain, had uncontrollable nausea and I was frightened. I felt so unwell but I couldn’t account for why – my caring, understanding doctor thought I should be well and I was ashamed to admit how terrible I felt.

Only a few months earlier, I’d had a life-changing moment. It was at a conference run by EndoActive – an advocacy group formed by mother and daughter powerhouse Lesley and Sylvia Freedman, who were demanding better information for people with endometriosis. I went to the conference as a journalist and a patient - but as a patient who believed she knew everything there was to know about endometriosis. I did not.

I shed my first tear when a researcher told the audience that women with endo are 180 times more likely to have chronic fatigue. I had been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome when I was 16. A man I met at uni told me chronic fatigue syndrome was a made-up illness and I felt so ashamed at my weakness I never admitted that diagnosis to anyone ever again. Maybe I had made the whole thing up, I thought? Was I really that sick, that tired? I could no longer remember. Now I recognise that bout of fatigue as just something I live with – and here I was finding out it was a typical symptom of endo.

Not longer after that revelation at the conference, there was a presentation on how endo affects the bowel. I also believed I had irritable bowel syndrome.

Doctors and researchers talked about back pain that sounded a lot like mine, which I thought was due to the skiing accident, they talked about nausea, poor sleep, headaches and dizziness – all common features of my life.

All my adult life, I had thought of myself as a weak person, someone a bit second rate, someone who couldn’t cope with life very well. I wanted to be stronger, I wanted to do more but I always seemed to pay for my periodic bouts of energy in ways I didn’t see happening to my friends - who I believed must have been simply stronger, better, more capable. Routines were good but so hard to keep – I’d make some progress, then be knocked over for a week by incredible pain, or fatigue or stomach upsets. And it took weeks to regain my strength afterwards.

But then, there I was, this May day at Sydney university, learning that all these things that were wrong with me were not at all random but each very common symptoms of this disease I had, this disease I thought amounted to quite bad period pain, but in reality was so much more – was in fact, me.

I was not weak, I was not a hypochondriac. I was a woman with endometriosis. I tried to call my mother when I left the conference to tell her this but I couldn’t get the words out. I was sobbing and I couldn’t stop. I got on the bus and still I couldn’t stop. People slyly and subtly stared at me but still I couldn’t stop sobbing. ‘Mum, I’m not a hypochrondriac, all these things wrong with me are real” I tried to say, over and over again. How do you cope with a lifetime of thinking you’re a hypochondriac only to discover you’re not?

I’ve heard doctors talk about how women love to get an endometriosis diagnosis. It’s often discussed in quite patronising tones – “see how women love to be sick”, is the implication. What is more rarely discussed is that the joy of diagnosis comes from a place of self doubt, from a realisation you aren’t crazy, or weak or a hypochondriac. That the pain you felt was real. This is especially powerful when you have been told by other doctors that the pain is in your head or that it’s normal, or you’ve waited for years for a diagnosis.

Reimagining yourself isn’t easy but legitimacy is a good first step. The knowledge that conference gave me and the research I’ve done since on understanding this disease I have gave me more strength than I could ever have imagined. I would never have dreamed I could write a book while working full time but this knowledge let me dream that dream and here I am today.

But what does this have to do with my recovery from laparoscopy?

I had worked for months on letting myself believe I was stronger than I thought only to be confronted again with these thoughts: maybe I am a hypochondriac? Why don’t I feel better when all the doctors and nurses think I should be? Why do I feel so bad? Why is this pain and nausea and fogginess so scary? I’ve lived in New York, London, Barcelona and Sydney. I’ve travelled through the Middle East alone. I’m not easy to scare, am i? Am I making it up? Do I want to be sick?

After about a week, I was still in pain. The scars had started to heal and my insides no longer felt like knives were scoring through them every time I moved but I had intense digestive troubles. I couldn’t sleep more than an hour or two without waking up from the sensations. I paced up and down to try to alleviate it but as soon as I lay down the pain would return. But I was tired and weak, I needed to lie down.

I went to see my GP. I was trying to describe the feeling to her, telling her the pain was better but this other feeling wouldn’t go away. She did a physical examination. “Why are you telling you’re not in pain when you are?” she asked. I didn’t know why I was telling her I wasn’t in pain, why couldn’t I admit to myself that this was pain I was feeling? My guts hurt like hell. Yes, that’s pain too. She talked me through what she thought was happening, prescribed a new drug and told me why she chose that drug over another. Told me what to eat and drink and sent me for an x-ray, urging me to come back if I was still IN PAIN in another few days. (I love my GP)

It was after that consultation that I went home and thought about all the pain I’d had in my life. In my book, I write: “I relived every episode [of pain], playing it all out in my mind, obsessively. Felt the injuries, over and over. All this pain suddenly accumulated, and like a flooded dam, it washed over me. I was heavy from the burden of it. And choked on it. Every vessel felt constricted, harsh, and to breathe, eat, walk, move a limb, roll over in bed, all required effort. I started to see my body as separate, something apart from me, something cruel and devious and punishing. I came to hate my body and all the pain it had caused.”
So why am I telling you this, when I’m pretty sure I’m preaching to the converted? I decided to tell this story because I believe the people in this room can make change happen.

It was through my own journey of pain that I came to the conclusion I had to use the platform I had as a journalist and editor to share the knowledge I was lucky enough to have received. Because that knowledge really did give me power.

When I was first writing about endometriosis for the Guardian I met the filmmaker Shannon Cohn who made the EndoWhat? documentary and who is working on a second film now.

She told me that her motivation to make the film was because in the 20 years since she was diagnosed with endo, nothing had changed. Many doctors are still giving bad advice, it still takes an average of eight years to be diagnosed, women are still told periods are supposed to be painful, women are still being subjected to ineffective surgeries.

Having been through misdiagnoses and multiple surgeries, Cohn wanted to do something that would put pressure on the medical establishment to change things. She started researching successful social change movements and studied HIV and Aids campaigns.

There were three important lessons she learnt from her studies, she told me. “One, patients became experts in their disease; two, they organised incredibly well; and three, they weren’t afraid to make people in power uncomfortable.”

Aids went from an incurable, highly stigmatised death sentence to a medical miracle in less than half a century. A similar tale can be told about breast cancer.

I happen to think that in Australia, we’re very lucky. The doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, researchers and other professionals who got behind the EndoActive conference showed a willingness from within the medical community for change. And importantly, a willingness to share knowledge to help patients become experts in their disease. And here in this room right now, I see the same willingness, energy and enthusiasm.

We’re up against the odds – which these days favour Instagram heavily. At the same time that a small group of experts and patient advocates were lobbying the government here in Australia to make the national action plan for endometriosis happen, “influencers” were lining up online to glamorise multiple laparoscopies and take sick selfies from their hospital beds. I don’t blame them! Who doesn’t want some sympathy in such a dreadful time? But I do worry that surgery is seen as a badge of honour and the only treatment for endo. I also worry in becoming a fashionable disease, the awareness raising becomes shallow - ends with the sick selfies and fails to push boundaries or consider the full picture of women in pain.

Only last week, one so-called influencer who has almost 53,000 followers on Instagram proclaimed that taking the pill had caused her polycystic ovary syndrome and endometriosis and that both were curable by quitting all pharmaceuticals and changing one’s diet. She became incredulous when people demanded evidence for her claims of a cure. Just yesterday, I was sent a video from a Twitter account that promised me a natural and permanent cure for fibroids in just 21 days and all I had to do to learn the secrets of the simple 3-step miracle program was to click this link and provide my credit card details and I would feel better by the morning! It implied that the terrible drugs we’ve used to manage the fibroids have actually caused the fibroids. The sad fact about this short video was that it was mildly convincing, and I found myself wondering if I was desperate, if I didn’t know what I know, would I try it? I remember, after months of one cold sore after another, signing up for a miracle cold sore cure once in my younger years. It wasn’t a miracle.

This is where we are. Trust in institutions is shrinking and pseudo science is on the up – the wellness industry is growing and people are abandoning science. Which simply means the time for science is now - and has never been more important. We need people like you to help arm people like me with facts.
Together, we need to call policymakers, medical leaders and the people who allocate research funding to account – we need to make them very uncomfortable – and unfortunately they are not made uncomfortable by the sight of a beautiful woman in a hospital gown.

Say the word ‘period’ however and watch them run for the hills.

Journalists can’t do this alone and nor can doctors. And it’s beyond the reach of many chronic pain patients to do this themselves.

But I’m afraid it if we’re to succeed, we may have to make ourselves uncomfortable too.

Part of our campaign to make change must involve examining the ways in which we communicate. Am I part of the ‘fake news media’, an establishment that believes we know better than everyone else? How can I communicate my message in way that doesn’t look down on people? This is very close to home for me. I have had people I know object to the Guardian’s coverage of people like Pete Evans and the practice of chiropractors and naturopaths. They have called our coverage “biased” and “unfair” and think it’s sniggering to people who are desperate.

I think medicine has the same problem. I’ve met countless other people who have told me they turned to natural therapies because these practitioners listen to them, believe them, have time for them. Their treatments may not work but nor did the pharmaceuticals given to them by their doctors.

In a brilliant essay published in the UK’s New Statesman magazine this week reflecting on all the recent literature about women’s pain, the author Imogen West-Knights writes: “We all like to scoff at the wellness industry, with its crystals, potions and lotions, but for those suffering from conditions the medical establishment does not yet understand, it can seem like the only option available.”

We cannot lose the people who have flocked to wellness and together, we have to find a way to win them back.

Understanding my disease and seeking out knowledgeable doctors and physiotherapists has improved my life to no end. I now have a quality of life I couldn’t have dreamed of five years ago.

I have been overwhelmed by the support of doctors, researchers and physiotherapists, both when I was writing the book and since it has been published. Health professionals have shown up to every event I’ve had around Australia. But they have all been women who are already thinking about these issues. Not a single male doctor who I didn’t already know has been in touch with me about this book. It’s not that I think they don’t care. I’ve had very caring and generous male doctors in my life and a few terrible females ones. It’s more that men are not hearing these conversations. Men have been socialised to tune out women’s voices, to believe –subconsciously or not – that women’s voices don’t matter. Certainly, that women’s periods don’t matter to them. Others believe it’s all a bit of feminist claptrap. This is not unique to medicine nor the media.

There are many good news stories to tell from the men I do know. My partner is a male GP and he told me the book has changed the way he practices medicine. He now sees gross examples of colleagues belittling or disbelieving women on a weekly basis and eagerly reports them all to me. How had he not seen this before?

I’m sure each of you has thought about the impact your words can have on your patients. How the expectations of doctors and other health professionals can make or break their patients. How information rather than expectation is so powerful. But many doctors have never considered how their words, their language and their expectations have an effect on their patients. And not because they’re bad people. Many patients have never considered how the words they use to describe their pain affects what the doctor believes about them as people. And not because they’re stupid.

A male GP I know, who is a lovely, caring man, once told me: “I’ve never had a fibromyalgia patient who wasn’t batshit crazy”. After reading my book, he said he was seriously rethinking how and why he had labelled these women and the ways he’d been trained to think in such a way. He took my book to work and when he had a patient who was struggling with the correct words for her anatomy, he took out my book and showed her a diagram labelling the vulva. The consultation totally changed. My friend was also changed by this. “She trusted me” he said, and that trust enabled the two adults to have a conversation about sex free of awkwardness and embarrassment. A similar incident happened the following week. “I think my relationship with my female patients has totally changed”, he said. This was from a man who, in the nicest possible way, felt he had nothing to learn from my book – after all, what could a doctor possibly learn about medicine from a journalist? It’s a reasonable question.

Two women have written to me after reading my book who got from it the courage to challenge what their male doctors were telling them. On both occasions, the doctor really listened and changed their approach – they weren’t offended or put out but happy to be faced with more knowledgeable patients and ready to work together with them.

But I have heard countless other horror stories from women who are treated really badly, disrespected, disbelieved and given very questionable treatments or none at all.

A nurse I know told me that she felt so bad reading my book because she used to work in gynaecology clinic where they did a lot of laparoscopies on endo patients. She said she never had really sympathy for the patients or any understanding of what they’ve been through and all the staff talked about them as though they were difficult or whingers. She tried to give the book to a friend who still works there but she wouldn’t take it. ‘I already know about women’s health’, she told my friend.

How do we get these doctors, nurses and other health professionals to listen when we know that so often the simple act of reflection and perspective can lead to huge changes?

In the New Statesman, Imogen West-Knights concludes her essay like this: One of the questions I had in mind when I began reading these books was: “Do they make a difference to women in pain?” I did not expect to arrive at such a concrete answer. At some point during my reading, the penny dropped: the symptoms of endometriosis were my symptoms, too. I’m now making appointments that could (could!) lead to my finally being diagnosed. So it is almost too clear to me that the answer to my question is: yes. Whatever happens from here, for me and for all of the millions of other woman in pain, the fact that there is now such a breadth of insightful books about the subject is comforting proof that we are not alone. There is strength in numbers.”

These books can’t be written without the careful guidance of people like you. A journalist’s job is to tell the stories of others. Stories need facts, yes, but they also need to be relatable, include real people and real life in them too – and that’s why only the media, medicine and patients working together can really bring about the change we want to see.

I know it’s hard as a doctor to challenge your colleagues. I have found it hard enough to challenge my friends. I often find it hard to convince editors these stories are worth publishing. That’s why none of us can do it alone. But – as West-Knights so simply notes: there is strength in numbers.

Gabrielle Jackson’s book is called ‘Pain and Prejudice - A Call to Arms for Women and Their Bodies’

Michael Gerson: 'In our right minds, we know that hope can grow within us', Sermon on Depression, National Cathedral - 2019

17 February 2019, National Cathedral, Washington DC, USA

When your Dean and I were conspiring about when I might speak, I think he mentioned February 3rd as a possibility. A sermon by me on that date would have been considerably less interesting, because I was, at that point, hospitalized for depression. Or maybe it would have been more interesting, though less coherent.

Like nearly one in ten Americans – and like many of you – I live with this insidious, chronic disease. Depression is a malfunction in the instrument we use to determine reality. The brain experiences a chemical imbalance and wraps a narrative around it. So the lack of serotonin, in the mind’s alchemy, becomes something like, “Everybody hates me.” Over time, despair can grow inside you like a tumor.

I would encourage anyone with this malady to keep a journal. At the bottom of my recent depression, I did a plus and minus, a pro and con, of me. Of being myself. The plus side, as you’d imagine, was short. The minus side included the most frightful clichés: “You are a burden to your friends.” “You have no future.” “No one would miss you.”

The scary thing is that these things felt completely true when I wrote them. At that moment, realism seemed to require hopelessness.

But then you reach your breaking point – and do not break. With patience and the right medicine, the fog in your brain begins to thin. If you are lucky, as I was, you encounter doctors and nurses who know parts of your mind better than you do. There are friends who run into the burning building of your life to rescue you, and acquaintances who become friends. You meet other patients, from entirely different backgrounds, who share your symptoms, creating a community of the wounded. And you learn of the valor they show in lonely rooms.

Over time, you begin to see hints and glimmers of a larger world outside the prison of your sadness. The conscious mind takes hold of some shred of beauty or love. And then more shreds, until you begin to think maybe, just maybe, there is something better on the far side of despair.

I have no doubt that I will eventually repeat the cycle of depression. But now I have some self-knowledge that can’t be taken away. I know that – when I’m in my right mind – I choose hope.

The phrase – “in my right mind” – is harsh. No one would use it in a clinical setting. But it fits my experience exactly.

In my right mind – when I am rested and fed, medicated and caffeinated – I know that I was living within a dismal lie.

In my right mind, I know I have friends who will not forsake me.

In my right mind, I know that chemistry need not be destiny.

In my right mind, I know that weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

This may have direct relevance to some here today. But I also think this medical condition works as a metaphor for the human condition.

All of us – whatever our natural serotonin level – look around us and see plenty of reason for doubt, anger and sadness. A child dies, a woman is abused, a schoolyard becomes a killing field, a Typhoon sweeps away the innocent. If we knew or felt the whole of human suffering, we would drown in despair. By all objective evidence, we are arrogant animals, headed for the extinction that is the way of all things. We imagine that we are like gods, and still drop dead like flies on the windowsill.

The answer to the temptation of nihilism is not an argument – though philosophy can clear away a lot of intellectual foolishness. It is the experience of transcendence we cannot explain, or explain away. It is the fragments of love and meaning that arrive out of the blue – in beauty that leaves a lump in your throat… in the peace and ordered complexity of nature… in the shadow and shimmer of a cathedral… in the unexplained wonder of existence itself.

I have one friend, John, who finds God’s hidden hand in the habits and coloring of birds. My friend Catherine, when her first child was born, discovered what she calls “a love much greater than evolution requires.” I like that. “A love much greater than evolution requires.”

My own experience is tied to this place. Let me turn to an earlier, happier part of my journals, from May 2nd, 2002:

“It has probably been a month,” I wrote, “since some prompting of God led me to a more disciplined Christian life. One afternoon I was led to the Cathedral, the place I feel most secure in the world. I saw the beautiful sculpture in the Bishop’s Garden – the prodigal son melting into his father’s arms – and the inscription how he fell on his neck, and kissed him. I felt tears and calm, like something important had happened to me and in me… My goals are pretty clear. I want to stop thinking about myself all the time. I want to be a mature disciple of Jesus, not a casual believer. I want to be God’s man.”

I have failed at these goals in a disturbing variety of ways. And I have more doubts than I did on that day. These kind of experiences may result from inspiration… or indigestion. Your brain may be playing tricks. Or you may be feeling the beating heart of the universe. Faith, thankfully, does not preclude doubt. It consists of staking your life on the rumor of grace.

This experience of pulling back the curtain of materiality, and briefly seeing the landscape of a broader world, comes in many forms. It can be religious and non-religious, Christian and non-Christian. We sometimes search for a hidden door when the city has a hundred open gates. But there is this difference for a Christian believer: At the end of all our striving and longing we find, not a force, but a face. All language about God is metaphorical. But the metaphor became flesh and dwelt among us.

Becoming alert to this reality might be called “enlightenment,” or the work of the Holy Ghost, or “conversion.” There really is no formula. Historically, there was Paul’s blinding light on the road to Damascus. There was Augustine, instructed by the voice of a child to “take up and read.” There was Pascal sewing into his jacket: “Since about half-past ten in the evening until about half-past midnight. FIRE. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.” There was Teresa of Avila encountering the suffering Christ with an “outpouring of tears.” There was John Wesley’s heart becoming “strangely warmed.”

Here is how G.K. Chesterton described this experience in a poem called “The Convert”:

“The sages have a hundred maps to giveThat trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,They rattle reason out through many a sieveThat stores the sand and lets the gold go free:And all these things are less than dust to meBecause my name is Lazarus and I live.”

It is impossible for anyone but saints to live always on that mountaintop. I suspect that there are people here today – and I include myself – who are stalked by sadness, or stalked by cancer, or stalked by anger. We are afraid of the mortality that is knit into our bones. We experience unearned suffering, or give unreturned love, or cry useless tears. And many of us eventually grow weary of ourselves – tired of our own sour company.

At some point, willed cheerfulness fails. Or we skim along the surface of our lives, afraid of what lies in the depths below. It is a way to cope, but no way to live.

I’d urge anyone with undiagnosed depression to seek out professional help. There is no way to will yourself out of this disease, any more than to will yourself out of tuberculosis.

There are, however, other forms of comfort. Those who hold to the wild hope of a living God can say certain things:

In our right minds – as our most sane and solid selves – we know that the appearance of a universe ruled by cruel chaos is an lie and that the cold void is actually a sheltering sky.

In our right minds, we know that life is not a farce but a pilgrimage – or maybe a farce and a pilgrimage, depending on the day.

In our right minds, we know that hope can grow within us – like a seed, like a child.

In our right minds, we know that transcendence sparks and crackles around us – in a blinding light, and a child’s voice, and fire, and tears, and a warmed heart, and a sculpture just down the hill – if we open ourselves to seeing it.

Fate may do what it wants. But this much is settled. In our right minds, we know that love is at the heart of all things.

Many, understandably, pray for a strength they do not possess. But God’s promise is somewhat different: That even when strength fails, there is perseverance. And even when perseverance fails, there is hope. And even when hope fails, there is love. And love never fails.

So how do we know this? How can anyone be so confident?

Because we are Lazarus, and we live.

Kim Namjoon (김남준) aka RM: 'I have come to love myself for who I am', Love Myself/#Endviolence campaign, United Nations - 2018

24 September 2018, United Nations, New York, USA

Thank you, Mr. Secretary General, UNICEF Executive Director and all the excellencies and distinguished guests from all across the world.

My name is Kim Namjoon also known as RM, the leader of the group BTS. It is an incredible honour to be invited to an occasion with such significance for today’s young generation.

Last November, BTS launched the Love Myself campaign with UNICEF, building on our belief that true love first begins with loving myself.

We have been partnering with UNICEF’s #ENDviolence programme to protect children and young people all over the world from violence. And our fans have become a major part of this campaign with their action and with their enthusiasm.

We truly have the best fans in the world.

And I’d like to begin by talking about myself. I was born in Ilsan-gu, a city near Seoul, South Korea. It is a beautiful place, with a lake, hills, and even an annual flower festival. I spent a happy childhood there, and I was just an ordinary boy. I used to look up at the night sky in wonder and I used to dream the dreams of a boy. I used to imagine that I was a superhero, who could save the world. And in an intro to one of our early albums, there is a line that says, “My heart stopped when I was maybe nine or ten.”

Looking back, I think that’s when I began to worry about what other people thought of me and started seeing myself through their eyes. I stopped looking up at the night skies, the stars. I stopped daydreaming. Instead, I just tried to jam myself into the moulds that other people made. Soon, I began to shut out my own voice and started to listen to the voices of others. No one called out my name and neither did I.

My heart stopped and my eyes closed shut.

So, like this, I, we, all lost our names. We became like ghosts.

But I had one sanctuary and that was music. There was a small voice inside of me that said, “Wake up man, and listen to yourself.” But it took me a long time to hear music calling my real name. Even after making the decision to join BTS, there were a lot of hurdles. Some people might not believe it but most people thought we were hopeless. And sometimes, I just wanted to quit. But I think I was very lucky that I didn’t give it all up. And I’m sure that I and we will keep stumbling and falling.

BTS has become artists performing in those huge stadiums and selling millions of albums right now. But I am still an ordinary 24-year-old guy. If there’s anything that I’ve achieved, it was only possible because I had my other BTS members right by my side and because of the love and the support that our ARMY of fans all over the world made for us.

And maybe I made a mistake yesterday but yesterday’s me is still me.

Today, I am who I am with all of my faults and my mistakes

Tomorrow I might be a tiny bit wiser and that would be me too.

These faults and mistakes are what I am, making up the brightest stars in the constellation of my life. I have come to love myself for who I am, for who I was and for who I hope to become.

I’d like to say one last thing. After releasing our Love Yourself albums and launching the Love Myself campaign, we started to hear remarkable stories from our fans all over the world, how our message helped them overcome their hardships in life and start loving themselves.

These stories constantly remind us of our responsibility.

So let’s all take one more step. We have learned to love ourselves, so now I urge you to “speak yourself”. I’d like to ask all of you, what is your name? What excites you and makes your heart beat? Tell me your story. I want to hear your voice and I want to hear your conviction.

No matter who you are, where you’re from, your skin colour, your gender identity, just speak yourself.

Find your name find your voice by speaking yourself.

I’m Kim Namjoon and also RM of BTS. I’m an idol and I’m an artist from a small town in Korea.

Like most people, I’ve made many and plenty mistakes in my life. I have many faults and I have many more fears, but I’m going to embrace myself as hard as I can and I’m starting to love myself, gradually, just little by little.

What is your name?

Speak Yourself.

Thank you very much

Claude Shannon: 'A very small percentage of the population produces the greatest proportion of the important ideas', Creative Thinking, Bell Laboraties - 1952

20 March 1952, New Jersey, USA

Up to 100% of the amount of ideas produced, useful good ideas produced by these signals, these are supposed to be arranged in order of increasing ability. At producing ideas, we find a curve something like this. Consider the number of curves produced here - going up to enormous height here.

A very small percentage of the population produces the greatest proportion of the important ideas. This is akin to an idea presented by an English mathematician, Turing, that the human brain is something like a piece of uranium. The human brain, if it is below the critical lap and you shoot one neutron into it, additional more would be produced by impact. It leads to an extremely explosive of the issue, increase the size of the uranium. Turing says this is something like ideas in the human brain. There are some people if you shoot one idea into the brain, you will get a half an idea out. There are other people who are beyond this point at which they produce two ideas for each idea sent in. those are the people beyond the knee of the curve. I don’t want to sound egotistical here, I don’t think that I am beyond the knee of this curve and I don’t know anyone who is. I do know some people that were. I think, for example, that anyone will agree that Isaac Newton would be well on the top of this curve. When you think that at the age of 25 he had produced enough science, physics and mathematics to make 10 or 20 men famous - he produced binomial theorem, differential and integral calculus, laws of gravitation, laws of motion, decomposition of white light, and so on. Now what is it that shoots one up to this part of the curve? What are the basic requirements? I think we could set down three things that are fairly necessary for scientific research or for any sort of inventing or mathematics or physics or anything along that line. I don’t think a person can get along without any one of these three.

The first one is obvious - training and experience. You don’t expect a lawyer, however bright he may be, to give you a new theory of physics these days or mathematics or engineering.

The second thing is a certain amount of intelligence or talent. In other words, you have to have an IQ that is fairly high to do good research work. I don’t think that there is any good engineer or scientist that can get along on an IQ of 100, which is the average for human beings. In other words, he has to have an IQ higher than that. Everyone in this room is considerably above that. This, we might say, is a matter of environment; intelligence is a matter of heredity.

Those two I don’t think are sufficient. I think there is a third constituent here, a third component which is the one that makes an Einstein or an Isaac Newton. For want of a better word, we will call it motivation. In other words, you have to have some kind of a drive, some kind of a desire to find out the answer, a desire to find out what makes things tick. If you don’t have that, you may have all the training and intelligence in the world, you don’t have questions and you won’t just find answers. This is a hard thing to put your finger on. It is a matter of temperament probably; that is, a matter of probably early training, early childhood experiences, whether you will motivate in the direction of scientific research. I think that at a superficial level, it is blended use of several things. This is not any attempt at a deep analysis at all, but my feeling is that a good scientist has a great deal of what we can call curiosity. I won’t go any deeper into it than that. He wants to know the answers. He’s just curious how things tick and he wants to know the answers to questions; and if he sees thinks, he wants to raise questions and he wants to know the answers to those.

Then there’s the idea of dissatisfaction. By this I don’t mean a pessimistic dissatisfaction of the world - we don’t like the way things are - I mean a constructive dissatisfaction. The idea could be expressed in the words, °∞This is OK, but I think things could be done better. I think there is a neater way to do this. I think things could be improved a little. In other words, there is continually a slight irritation when things don’t look quite right; and I think that dissatisfaction in present days is a key driving force in good scientists.

And another thing I’d put down here is the pleasure in seeing net results or methods of arriving at results needed, designs of engineers, equipment, and so on. I get a big bang myself out of providing a theorem. If I’ve been trying to prove a mathematical theorem for a week or so and I finally find the solution, I get a big bang out of it. And I get a big kick out of seeing a clever way of doing some engineering problem, a clever design for a circuit which uses a very small amount of equipment and gets apparently a great deal of result out of it. I think so far as motivation is concerned, it is maybe a little like Fats Waller said about swing music - ''either you got it or you ain’t.'' if you ain’t got it, you probably shouldn’t be doing research work if you don’t want to know that kind of answer. Although people without this kind of motivation might be very successful in other fields, the research man should probably have an extremely strong drive to want to find out the answers, so strong a drive that he doesn’t care whether it is 5 o°clock - he is willing to work all night to find out the answers and al weekend if necessary. Well now, this is all well and good, but supposing a person has these three properties to a sufficient extent to be useful, are there any tricks, any gimmicks that he can apply to thinking that will actually aid in creative work, in getting the answers in research work, in general, in finding answers to problems? I think there are, and I think they can be catalogued to an certain extent. You can make quite a list of them and I think they would be very useful if one did that, so I am going to give a few of them which I have thought up or which people have suggested to me. And I think if one consciously applied these to various problems you had to solve, in many cases you’d find solutions quicker than you would normally or in cases where you might not find it at all. I thing that good research workers apply these things unconsciously; that is, they do these things automatically and if they were brought forth into the conscious thinking that here’s a situation where I would try this method of approach that would probably get there faster, although I can’t document this statement.

The first one that I might speak of is the idea of simplification. Suppose that you are given a problem to solve, I don’t care what kind of a problem - a machine to design, or a physical theory to develop, or a mathematical theorem to prove, or something of that kind - probably a very powerful approach to this is to attempt to eliminate everything from the problem except the essentials; that is, cut it down to size. Almost every problem that you come across is befuddled with all kinds of extraneous data of one sort or another; and if you can bring this problem down into the main issues, you can see more clearly what you’re trying to do and perhaps find a solution. Now, in so doing, you may have stripped away the problem that you’re after. You may have simplified it to a point that it doesn’t even resemble the problem that you started with; but very often if you can solve this simple problem, you can add refinements to the solution of this until you get back to the solution of the one you started with.

A very similar device is seeking similar known problems. I think I could illustrate this schematically in this way. You have a problem P here and there is a solution S which you do not know yet perhaps over here. If you have experience in the field represented, that you are working in, you may perhaps know of a somewhat similar problem, call it P', which has already been solved and which has a solution, S', all you need to do - all you may have to do is find the analogy from P' here to P and the same analogy from S' to S in order to get back to the solution of the given problem. This is the reason why experience in a field is so important that if you are experienced in a field, you will know thousands of problems that have been solved. Your mental matrix will be filled with P's and S's unconnected here and you can find one which is tolerably close to the P that you are trying to solve and go over to the corresponding S' in order to go back to the S you’re after. It seems to be much easier to make two small jumps than the one big jump in any kind of mental thinking.

Another approach for a given problem is to try to restate it in just as many different forms as you can. Change the words. Change the viewpoint. Look at it from every possible angle. After you’ve done that, you can try to look at it from several angles at the same time and perhaps you can get an insight into the real basic issues of the problem, so that you can correlate the important factors and come out with the solution. It’s difficult really to do this, but it is important that you do. If you don’t, it is very easy to get into ruts of mental thinking. You start with a problem here and you go around a circle here and if you could only get over to this point, perhaps you would see your way clear; but you can’t break loose from certain mental blocks which are holding you in certain ways of looking at a problem. That is the reason why very frequently someone who is quite green to a problem will sometimes come in and look at it and find the solution like that, while you have been laboring for months over it. You’ve got set into some ruts here of mental thinking and someone else comes in and sees it from a fresh viewpoint.

Another mental gimmick for aid in research work, I think, is the idea of generalization. This is very powerful in mathematical research. The typical mathematical theory developed in the following way to prove a very isolated, special result, particular theorem - someone always will come along and start generalization it. He will leave it where it was in two dimensions before he will do it in N dimensions; or if it was in some kind of algebra, he will work in a general algebraic field; if it was in the field of real numbers, he will change it to a general algebraic field or something of that sort. This is actually quite easy to do if you only remember to do it. If the minute you’ve found an answer to something, the next thing to do is to ask yourself if you can generalize this anymore - can I make the same, make a broader statement which includes more - there, I think, in terms of engineering, the same thing should be kept in mind. As you see, if somebody comes along with a clever way of doing something, one should ask oneself °∞Can I apply the same principle in more general ways? Can I use this same clever idea represented here to solve a larger class of problems? Is there any place else that I can use this particular thing?°±

Next one I might mention is the idea of structural analysis of a problem. Suppose you have your problem here and a solution here. You may have two big a jump to take. What you can try to do is to break down that jump into a large number of small jumps. If this were a set of mathematical axioms and this were a theorem or conclusion that you were trying to prove, it might be too much for me try to prove this thing in one fell swoop. But perhaps I can visualize a number of subsidiary theorems or propositions such that if I could prove those, in turn I would eventually arrive at this solution. In other words, I set up some path through this domain with a set of subsidiary solutions, 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on, and attempt to prove this on the basis of that and then this one the basis of these which I have proved until eventually I arrive at the path S. Many proofs in mathematics have been actually found by extremely roundabout processes. A man starts to prove this theorem and he finds that he wanders all over the map. He starts off and prove a good many results which don’t seem to be leading anywhere and then eventually ends up by the back door on the solution of the given problem; and very often when that’s done, when you’ve found your solution, it may be very easy to simplify; that is, to see at one stage that you may have short-cutted across here and you could see that you might have short-cutted across there. The same thing is true in design work. If you can design a way of doing something which is obviously clumsy and cumbersome, uses too much equipment; but after you’ve really got something you can get a grip on, something you can hang on to, you can start cutting out components and seeing some parts were really superfluous. You really didn’t need them in the first place.

Now one other thing I would like to bring out which I run across quite frequently in mathematical work is the idea of inversion of the problem. You are trying to obtain the solution S on the basis of the premises P and then you can’t do it. Well, turn the problem over supposing that S were the given proposition, the given axioms, or the given numbers in the problem and what you are trying to obtain is P. Just imagine that that were the case. Then you will find that it is relatively easy to solve the problem in that direction. You find a fairly direct route. If so, it’s often possible to invent it in small batches. In other words, you’ve got a path marked out here - there you got relays you sent this way. You can see how to invert these things in small stages and perhaps three or four only difficult steps in the proof.

Now I think the same thing can happen in design work. Sometimes I have had the experience of designing computing machines of various sorts in which I wanted to compute certain numbers out of certain given quantities. This happened to be a machine that played the game of nim and it turned out that it seemed to be quite difficult. If took quite a number of relays to do this particular calculation although it could be done. But then I got the idea that if I inverted the problem, it would have been very easy to do - if the given and required results had been interchanged; and that idea led to a way of doing it which was far simpler than the first design. The way of doing it was doing it by feedback; that is, you start with the required result and run it back until - run it through its value until it matches the given input. So the machine itself was worked backward putting range S over the numbers until it had the number that you actually had and, at that point, until it reached the number such that P shows you the correct way. Well, now the solution for this philosophy which is probably very boring to most of you. I’d like now to show you this machine which I brought along and go into one or two of the problems which were connected with the design of that because I think they illustrate some of these things I’ve been talking about. In order to see this, you’ll have to come up around it; so, I wonder whether you will all come up around the table now.

Stephen Murphy - 'Before You Push the Chair', 'The Healing', Listowel Writers Week - 2018

3 June 2018, John B Keane's Pub, Listowel, Co Kerry, Ireland

[As title of Stephen's poem suggests, contains themes of mental illness and suicide]

I was in Limerick last night, I was here for Thursday - I had a bit of a gig on for Thursday, and then I went home for Friday morning ... [inaudible] ... and then I was down in Limerick at Homeland last night, and I was thinking, fuck it, you know what, I’m going back to The Healing.

And the reason I wanted to come back to the Healing is because I wanted to give this poem at it. Because if it’s not for The Healing that we’re here, what is it?

And it’s a poem called ‘Before You Push the Chair’.

And it’s a lot less craic than most of the other stuff, sorry.

Before You Push The Chair

I want you to know that I've been there

In those moments when it feels as though
every wall's a prison
When the whole world kneels upon you
and the darkness of your vision
Has encompassed all before you
and turned your whole world black
And it feels as though you'll never get
to see your old world back.

I've been labelled with depression,
and branded with disease
And given the impression
that for anyone who sees
Past this great deception
that's been sold to us as fact
There's a template for expression
as to how we should react.

But I've come to see despair
as a product of control
That's embedded in our psyche
by the forces who patrol
What we read within our papers,
or see upon our screens
As deliberately tapered
to tamper with our dreams

And for all that we resist it,
it's there on every surface
From our buses to our bodies,
all designed to fit the purpose
To remind us that for all we have,
it's still never enough
That there'll always be that void to fill
with other mindless stuff

And though some still cling to God
to bring some structure to their lives
And others seem to need to be
destructive to survive
There's a whole new generation
wandering aimless and confused
Who were born into an age
that never had a God to lose
And in their quest for validation
they turn to the machine
'Cause they've come to know the world
through the comfort of a screen.

And I've seen the way we've gone
from being socially adept
From a people who were strong
to being totally inept
Where anxiety and loneliness
are living side by side
And everyone's just saving face
for fear of losing pride
As the constant threat of homelessness
and risk of repossession
Has come to manifest itself
as clinical depression
So we medicate the masses
just to keep them from the rope
And eradicate the last remaining
evidence of hope
Just to sell us back
the superficial versions of our selves
From the sacrificial altars
of our supermarket shelves
And then tell us that
'A problem halved is just a problem shared'
But thus a problem doubled
is a problem that's been layered
'Cause so many now despair
because to paraphrase Voltaire;
They see who rules who suffers,
yet still they're running scared.

But before you push the chair,
I want you to step down from there
And be the light you're born to be
To understand that those who see things differently
Are those who reshape history
That the prophets in the scriptures
were the poets of their time
And everyone you'll ever meet
has struggled with the mind
But one true friend will always trump
a million friends online

Where reality's distorted
and contorted to obscure
Designed to isolate us
and to make us insecure
But for all our social networks,
our net worth is obsolete
When we need the praise of strangers
to make us feel complete

But beyond our echo chambers,
when we lift our eyes we'll see
That around us lie the embers
of our own humanity
And as day is why we name the night
so too we'll come to see
That the they we like to blame in life
is only ever we
And for all we try to justify
the versions of our truth
They will always be perversions
to another's absolute
'Cause no matter where the roots lie,
the one thing guaranteed
Is that the plant will always come
to bear the hallmarks of the seed.

And I don't have all the answers,
and I'll never say I do
I've just as many doubts
and insecurities as you
But a friend of mine once told me
that I showed up in a dream
And I'm not exactly sure
what any of it means

But I was walking through a desert
with my back towards the sun
In a crowd of other people
but for every other one
Their shadows fell before them
but for me it fell behind
And he said that he just stood there
and watched us for a time

'Til at last I took an hourglass
and smashed it with a stone
Then poured the sand upon the sand
as there I stood alone
And when he asked me why I did it,
I turned to him and said;
'That was simply just the way
that the universe was made.'

I know that may sound clichéd,
but I've been thinking about it since
And the more that I've been thinking,
the more that I'm convinced
That maybe all of us are only
pouring dust upon the dust
And it's not us killing time
but more just time that's killing us

But when two people every day here now
are taking their own lives
And countless many others
are struggling to survive
At what point do we acknowledge
that this problem's epidemic
And not just a polemic
of some college academic?

'Cause we're so intent on carrying
this intense collective grief
That we seem content on marrying
our lack of self-belief
To a greater sense of victimhood
that always comes across
As a symptom of the dogma
we've adopted from the cross

But I'm tired of trying to find the words
'I'm sorry for your loss'
When that loss could be avoided
for a fraction of the cost
And I'm tired of the statistics,
'cause the numbers can't uphold
The stories of the victims
that will largely go untold
And I'm tired of the stigma
that still surrounds our mental health
As if for simply feeling
is a failing of the self
But I'm mostly just exhausted
'cause I'm all too well aware
That right now someone else
is just about to push the chair.

And I wish that I could tell them,
for however dark their plight
That through the shelter of each other
We can learn that love is light.

Stephen Murphy is releasing a book of his poetry. Please visit his facebook page and purchase a copy.

Australia: Lifeline 131144
Ireland/UK: Samaritans 116 123
USA: Lifeline 1-800-273-8255
India: suicide.org for regional hotlines

Amy Schumer: 'I am not who I sleep with. I am not my weight. I am not my mother. I am myself', Gloria Awards - 2014

1 May 2014, New York City, New York, USA

This event was put on by the Ms Foundation for Gloria Steinem's 80th birthday. The themes were confidence.

Here I go, and if it doesn't go well, please just don't blog about it.

Right before I left for college, I was running my high school. Feel it. I knew where to park, I knew where to get the best chicken-cutlet sandwich, I knew which custodians had pot. People knew me. They liked me. I was an athlete and a good friend. I felt pretty, I felt funny, I felt sane. Then I got to college in Maryland. My school was voted number one ... for the hottest freshman girls in Playboy that year. And not because of me. All of a sudden, being witty and charismatic didn't mean shit. Day after day, I could feel the confidence drain from my body. I was not what these guys wanted. They wanted thinner, blonder, dumber ... My sassy one-liners were only working on the cafeteria employees, who I was visiting all too frequently, tacking on not the Freshman 15, but the 30, in record-breaking time, which led my mother to make comments over winter break like, "You look healthy!" I was getting no male attention, and I'm embarrassed to say, it was killing me.

But one guy paid me some attention — Matt. Matt was six feet tall, he looked like a grown-up von Trapp child, and he was five years older than me. What?! An older boy, paying attention to me? I must be okay. Uff. I made him laugh in our bio lab, and I could tell a couple times that we had a vibe. He was a super senior, which is a sexy way of saying "should have graduated, but needed an extra year." He barely spoke, which was perfect for all the projecting I had planned for him. We grew up in the same town, and getting attention from him felt like success. When I would see him on campus, my heart would race, and I would smile as he passed. I'd look in the mirror and see all the blood rise to my face. I'd spend time analyzing the interaction, and planning my outfit for the next time I saw him. I wanted him to call. He never called. But then finally, he called.

It was 8 a.m., my dorm room phone rang. "Amy, wassup? It's Matt. Come over." Holy shit! This is it, I thought. He woke up thinking about me! He realized we're meant to start a life together! Let's just stop all this pretending that we weren't free just to love one another! I wondered, would we raise our kids in the town we both grew up in, or has he taken a liking to Baltimore? I don't care. I'll settle wherever he's most comfortable. Will he want to raise our kids Jewish? Who cares? I shaved my legs in the sink, I splashed some water under my armpits, and my randomly assigned Albanian roommate stared at me from under her sheets as I rushed around our shitty dorm room. I ran right over to his place, ready for our day together. What would we do? It's still early enough, maybe we're going fishing? Or maybe his mom's in town, and he wanted me to join them for breakfast. Knock-knock. Is he going to carry me over the threshold? I bet he's fixing his hair and telling his mom, "Be cool, this may be the one!" I'll be very sweet with her, but assert myself, so she doesn't think she's completely in charge of all the holiday dinners we're going to plan together. I'll call her by her first name, too, so she knows she can't mess with me. "Rita! I'm going to make the green bean casserole this year, and that's that!" Knock-knock. Ring ring. Where is he?

Finally, the door opens. It's Matt, but not really. He's there, but not really. His face is kind of distorted, and his eyes seem like he can't focus on me. He's actually trying to see me from the side, like a shark. "Hey!" he yells, too loud, and gives me a hug, too hard. He's fucking wasted. I'm not the first person he thought of that morning. I'm the last person he called that night. I wonder, how many girls didn't answer before he got to fat freshman me? Am I in his phone as Schumer? Probably. But I was here, and I wanted to be held and touched and felt desired, despite everything. I wanted to be with him. I imagined us on campus together, holding hands, proving, "Look! I am lovable! And this cool older guy likes me!" I can't be the troll doll I'm afraid I've become.

He put on some music, and we got in bed. As that sexy maneuver where the guy pushes you on the bed, you know, like, "I'm taking the wheel on this one. Now I'm going to blow your mind," which is almost never followed up with anything. He smelled like skunk microwaved with cheeseburgers, which I planned on finding and eating in the bathroom, as soon as he was asleep. We tried kissing. His 9 a.m. shadow was scratching my face — I knew it'd look like I had fruit-punch mouth for days after. His alcohol-swollen mouth, I felt like I was being tongued by someone who had just been given Novocain. I felt faceless, and nameless. I was just a warm body, and I was freezing cold. His fingers poked inside me like they had lost their keys in there. And then came the sex, and I use that word very loosely. His penis was so soft, it felt like one of those de-stress things that slips from your hand? So he was pushing aggressively into my thigh, and during this failed penetration, I looked around the room to try and distract myself or God willing, disassociate. What's on the wall? A Scarface poster, of course. Mandatory. Anything else? That's it? This Irish-Catholic son of bank teller who played JV soccer and did Mathletes feels the most connection with a Cuban refugee drug lord. The place looked like it was decorated by an overeager set designer who took the note "temporary and without substance" too far.

He started to go down on me. That's ambitious, I think. Is it still considered getting head if the guy falls asleep every three seconds and moves his tongue like an elderly person eating their last oatmeal? Chelsea? Is it? Yes? It is. I want to scream for myself, "Get out of here, Amy. You are beautiful, you are smart, and worth more than this. This is not where you stay." I feel like Fantine and Cosette and every fucking sad French woman from Les Miz. And whoever that cat was who sang "Memories," what was that musical? Suze Orman just goes, "Cats." The only wetness between my legs is from his drool, because he's now sleeping and snoring into me. I sigh, I hear my own heartbreak, I fight back my own tears, and then I notice a change in the music. Is this just a bagpipe solo? I shake him awake. "Matt, what is this? The Braveheart soundtrack? Can you put something else on, please?" He wakes up grumpily, falls to the floor, and crawls. I look at his exposed butt crack, a dark, unkempt abyss that I was falling into. I felt paralyzed. His asshole is a canyon, and this was my 127 Hours. I might chew my arm off.

I could feel I was losing myself to this girl in this bed. He stood up and put a new CD on. "Darling, you send me, I know you send me, honest, you do ..." I'm thinking, "What is this?" He crawled back into bed, and tried to mash at this point his third ball into my vagina. On his fourth thrust, he gave up and fell asleep on my breast. His head was heavy and his breath was so sour, I had to turn my head so my eyes didn't water. But they were watering anyway, because of this song. Who is this? This is so beautiful. I've never heard these songs before. They're gutting me. The score attached to our morning couldn't have been more off. His sloppy, tentative lovemaking was certainly not in the spirit of William Wallace. And now the most beautiful love songs I've ever heard play out as this man-boy laid in my arms, after diminishing me to a last-minute booty call. I listened to the songs and I cried. I was looking down at myself from the ceiling fan. What happened to this girl? How did she get here? I felt the fan on my skin and I went, "Oh, wait! I am this girl! We got to get me out of here!" I became my own fairy godmother. I waited until the last perfect note floated out, and escaped from under him and out the door. I never heard from Matt again, but felt only grateful for being introduced to my new self, a girl who got her value from within her. I'm also grateful to Matt for introducing me to my love Sam Cooke, who I'm still with today.

Now I feel strong and beautiful. I walk proudly down the streets of Manhattan. The people I love, love me. I make the funniest people in the country laugh, and they are my friends. I am a great friend and an even better sister. I have fought my way through harsh criticism and death threats for speaking my mind. I am alive, like the strong women in this room before me. I am a hot-blooded fighter and I am fearless. But I did morning radio last week, and a DJ asked, "Have you gained weight? You seem chunkier to me. You should strike while the iron is hot, Amy." And it's all gone. In an instant, it's all stripped away. I wrote an article for Men's Health and was so proud, until I saw instead of using my photo, they used one of a 16-year-old model wearing a clown nose, to show that she's hilarious. But those are my words. What about who I am, and what I have to say? I can be reduced to that lost college freshman so quickly sometimes, I want to quit. Not performing, but being a woman altogether. I want to throw my hands in the air, after reading a mean Twitter comment, and say, "All right! You got it. You figured me out. I'm not pretty. I'm not thin. I do not deserve to use my voice. I'll start wearing a burqa and start waiting tables at a pancake house. All my self-worth is based on what you can see." But then I think, Fuck that. I am not laying in that freshman year bed anymore ever again. I am a woman with thoughts and questions and shit to say. I say if I'm beautiful. I say if I'm strong. You will not determine my story — I will. I will speak and share and fuck and love and I will never apologize to the frightened millions who resent that they never had it in them to do it. I stand here and I am amazing, for you. Not because of you. I am not who I sleep with. I am not my weight. I am not my mother. I am myself. And I am all of you, and I thank you

Gabourey Sidibe: 'This is what I deal with every time someone takes a picture of me', Gloria awards

1 May 2014, Gloria Awards, Ms. Foundation for Women, Cipriani 42nd Street, New York, USA

I'm so excited to be here. Really, really excited. Okay, I'll get to it. Hi. One of the first things people usually ask me is, "Gabourey, how are you so confident?" I hate that. I always wonder if that's the first thing they ask Rihanna when they meet her. "RiRi! How are you so confident?" Nope. No. No. But me? They ask me with that same incredulous disbelief every single time. "You seem so confident! How is that?"
 
When I was ten years, in the fifth grade, my teacher, Miss Lowe had announced that my class would be having a holiday party right before the Christmas break. She asked if we all could all bring snacks or soda or juice to the class party. She also said we had the option of cooking something, if we like. I was so excited. I immediately decided that I would make gingerbread cookies, and that everyone would love them. I told my mom my plan, and I asked her for money to go buy the ingredients. She thought I should just buy store-bought cookies, but I told her, "Those cookies didn't have enough love in them!" I had to make the cookies. So I bought the mix, and I bought cookie cutters in the shape of Christmas trees and bells, and I made a practice batch of cookies that went horribly wrong. Good thing they were a practice batch. They were awful. And then the night before the party, I made another batch of cookies. And they were also awful, but they looked a lot better. I carefully put the cookies in a Ziplock bag, so I could take them to school the next day. When I got to school that morning, I could not wait until that party. And I was so proud of those cookies, and all the effort I put into making them, I started to think that maybe I wouldn't just be the first woman black President — maybe I would also be a celebrity chef! I mean, why limit myself?
 
The party was set to take place during the last hour of school, and I waited excitedly for it all day long. Finally, it was party time. My teacher asked what everyone brought, and I proudly announced that I had baked cookies for the class. I think I felt prouder knowing that everyone else just bought stuff. I was the only one who made anything, because clearly, I'm a little more clever than anyone else. So as the party starts up, I walk around the class, proudly offering cookies to everyone. No one took a cookie. No one. No one except Nicholas, who was the first person I offered one to. But after a few of our other classmates set him straight, he actually caught up with me as I walked around the class, and gave the cookie back. I walked around the class trying to hand out cookies to my class, until I ended up back at my desk with the same amount of cookies that I started with. I sat at my desk alone, eating those gross gingerbread cookies that took hours to make, all by myself. I put chocolate chips in them, that's why they were gross. I wasn't surprised. I just forgot for a moment that my entire class hated me. I had zero friends from the fourth grade to the sixth grade. Who the hell was I baking cookies for? I really got so excited to bake that I had forgotten that everyone hated my guts. Why didn't they like me? I was fat, yes. I had darker skin and weird hair, yes. But the truth is, this isn't a story about bulling, or color, or weight. They hated me because... I was an asshole!
 
Yep. I was a bossy, bossy asshole. See, remember when I said that I thought I was more clever than everyone else? Well, I did! And I told them that — every single day! Those kids couldn't get a word in edgewise, without me cutting them off to remind them that I was smarter, funnier, and all around wittier than them. I was always sarcastic — I called it my birth defect. And let's face it, kids don't get sarcasm. They don't appreciate it. They never knew what I was talking about. And when they would say, "Wait... huh?" I would say, "My God, Alicia, read a book!" I know. I spoke differently than them, I just did. I sounded more like a Valley Girl than a Brooklyn girl. My classmates always asked me if I was adopted by white people. I'd say, "No. Both my parents went to college." I know that was rude, but I'm still really proud of that. To be fair, in my neighborhood, not everyone's parents had the opportunity to go to college. Most of my classmates' parents were teens when they had them. My parents had me at age 30. My father was born in Senegal. His father was the mayor of the capital city, Dakar, and my dad often took my brother and I back home with him to visit Africa, while most of my classmates had never stepped out of the Lower East Side. My mother was a teacher in high school, that's why I went there, but my mom also had a voice, so when I was nine, she quit her teaching job to go sing in the subway. She actually made more money as a singer for tips than she made as a teacher! I know! And she was quickly becoming the underground version of Whitney Houston. She was the strongest, smartest, and most talented person I had ever known. Even today, I don't want to grow up to be anyone as much as I want to grow up to be her. I know!
 
The point is, I was a snob. I thought I was better than the kids in my class, and I let them know it. That's why they didn't like me. I think the reason I thought so highly of myself all the time was because no one else ever did. I figured out I was smart because my mother would yell at my older brother. She'd say, "Your little sister is going to pass you in school. You're going to get left behind and she's going to graduate before you." But she never said to me, "You are smart." What she did say was, "You are too fat." I got the message that I wasn't pretty, and I probably wasn't normal, but I was smart! Why wouldn't they just say that? "You're smart." It's actually not that hard. My dad would yell at my brother, "Gabourey does her homework by herself! Why can't you?" But he never said to me, "Good job." What he did say was, "You need to lose weight so I can be proud of you." I know. So I got made fun of at school, I got made fun of at home too, my older brother hated me, my dad just didn't understand me, and my mom, who had been a fat girl at my age herself, understood me perfectly ... but she berated me because she was so afraid of what she knew was to come for me. So I never felt safe when I was at home. And my response was always to eat more, because nothing says, "You hurt my feelings. Fuck you!" like eating a delicious cookie. Cookies never hurt me.
 
"Gabourey, how are you so confident?" It's not easy. It's hard to get dressed up for award shows and red carpets when I know I will be made fun of because of my weight. There's always a big chance if I wear purple, I will be compared to Barney. If I wear white, a frozen turkey. And if I wear red, that pitcher of Kool-Aid that says, "Oh, yeah!" Twitter will blow up with nasty comments about how the recent earthquake was caused by me running to a hot dog cart or something.  And "Diet or Die?" [She gives the finger to that]  This is what I deal with every time I put on a dress. This is what I deal with every time someone takes a picture of me. Sometimes when I'm being interviewed by a fashion reporter, I can see it in her eyes, "How is she getting away with this? Why is she so confident? How does she deal with that body? Oh my God, I'm going to catch fat!"
 
What I would say, is my mom moved my brother and I to my aunt's house. Her name is Dorothy Pitman Hughes, she is a feminist, an activist, and a lifelong friend of Gloria Steinem. Every day, I had to get up and go to school where everyone made fun of me, and I had to go home to where everyone made fun of me. Every day was hard to get going, no matter which direction I went. And on my way out of the house, I found strength. In the morning on the way out to the world, I passed by a portrait of my aunt and Gloria together. Side by side they stood, one with long beautiful hair and one with the most beautiful, round, Afro hair I had ever seen, both with their fists held high in the air. Powerful. Confident. And every day as I would leave the house... I would give that photo a fist right back. And I'd march off into battle. [She starts crying] I didn't know that I was being inspired then. On my way home, I'd walk back up those stairs, I'd give that photo the fist again, and continue my march back in for more battle. [She pulls a tissue from her cleavage and dabs her eyes] That's what boobs are for! I didn't know I was being inspired then, but I was. If they could feel like that, maybe I could! I just wanted to look that cool. But it made me feel that strong.
 
So, okay, we're back in fifth grade, and I just had been rejected by 28 kids in a row. And I was sitting alone at my desk, with an empty Ziplock bag, crumbs in my lap, and I was at this great party that I had waited for all week. I waited all week for this party that I wasn't invited to. And for some reason I got up, I sat on my desk, and I partied my ass off. I laughed loudly when something funny happened. And when Miss Lowe put on music, I was one of the first ones to get up and dance. I joined the limbo, and ate chips, and drank soda, and I enjoyed myself, even though no one wanted me there. You know why? I told you — I was an asshole! I wanted that party! And what I want trumps what 28 people want me to do, especially when what they want me to do is leave. I had a great time. I did. And if I somehow ruined my classmates' good time, then that's on them. "How are you so confident?" "I'm an asshole!" Okay? It's my good time, and my good life, despite what you think of me. I live my life, because I dare. I dare to show up when everyone else might hide their faces and hide their bodies in shame. I show up because I'm an asshole, and I want to have a good time. And my mother and my father love me. They wanted the best life for me, and they didn't know how to verbalize it. And I get it. I really do. They were better parents to me than they had themselves. I'm grateful to them, and to my fifth grade class, because if they hadn't made me cry, I wouldn't be able to cry on cue now. [Dabs tears] If I hadn't been told I was garbage, I wouldn't have learned how to show people I'm talented. And if everyone had always laughed at my jokes, I wouldn't have figured out how to be so funny. If they hadn't told me I was ugly, I never would have searched for my beauty. And if they hadn't tried to break me down, I wouldn't know that I'm unbreakable. [Dabs tears] So when you ask me how I'm so confident, I know what you're really asking me: how could someone like me be confident? Go ask Rihanna, asshole!

Greg Hunt: 'The time is long overdue to bring this condition out of the dark', Friends of Endometriosis Awareness Launch - 2017

7 December 2017, Parliament House, Canberra, Australia

Video produced for EndoActive by Change Focus Media. Endometriosis is as common as asthma and diabetes, but has received scant funding before this announcement..

Thanks very much to Nicole. I heard the champagne corks going before I spoke.  

To you, for your immense passion and leadership, and Gai equally for yourself. To Catherine, this is a shared, utterly non-partisan – bipartisan is the wrong word – non-partisan commitment that I think Parliament and this Parliament will now take up. 

To Nola, Nola has made me cry on many occasions, and almost all my fault. But her story, her voice is one of the powerful voices in this house about the challenge of endometriosis and the impact on so many women’s lives. 

And then to all of the magnificent voices today, it took a lot of courage to stand up in front of this audience and to say what you’ve said. It took a lot of courage, so I want to acknowledge you. 

In particular, acknowledge Donna and Janet and their leadership in this space, and introduce you to a group of people that I brought along that were not expecting to come today, and that is the current president and deputy president of the Australian Medical Students’ Association, led by Rob, and the incoming president and deputy president of the Australian Medical Students’ Association, led by Alexandra – two men giving way to two women.

I can confidently guarantee they are brilliant medical students and leaders of the future will leave this room and never forget the experience, and that they will make sure that AMSA will ensure that all emerging doctors in Australia from this moment forwards, and you can trace it to this moment forwards, will be aware of the fundamental importance. 

I cannot speak more powerfully than the beautiful voices that have told their stories today, the chronic pain, the infertility, the crushing mental health challenges, and in some cases the most tragic of outcomes, whether it is through the condition or through the mental health impacts. 

Your voices have set that out. What I can do is to acknowledge that pain and to acknowledge that reality, and I really want to do three things today. 

One is to talk about the acknowledgement, two is to talk about the action, and three is to talk about the research, Grant’s work and the work of so many others. 

In terms of the acknowledgement, let’s see if I can do this, the time is long overdue to bring this condition out of the dark. I don’t need to repeat my own description myself, Sylv has very eloquently given my own words back to me in the place that I never expected it.

Thank you for that. But let me say something on behalf of all of those in Parliament and all of those who have been responsible for our medical system, I apologise. 

This condition should have been acknowledged at an earlier time in a more powerful way, and it will never be forgotten again. 

The second thing is to say, well, now that you’re on the map – long overdue, but now that you’re on the map – what do we do? 

And so I want to announce today that, in conjunction with the Australian Coalition for Endometriosis, with Endo Australia and all of the different groups, we will develop the first National Action Plan for Endometriosis. 

This is a tribute to your work. To Gay, and to Nicole, and to Catherine, and to Nola and to everybody else, and so everything’s on the table, the combination of education and training for girls and young women, for men, for our medical professionals, public awareness, but also the Medicare treatments and the steps forward in terms of research. 

So we will work out a process with ACE, we will follow that through, and we will keep going until we’ve got the right (inaudible), so the first national action plan.

(inaudible) recognition within the national health priorities, the form and the shape give us some flexibility. 

Catherine and I will need to work together on that, but it will be included within those priorities in one way, shape or form, and I think that that will be a very powerful outcome. 

Related to that, the Jean Hailes foundation, as Catherine noted, will make this one of their absolute priorities for Women’s Health Week, and this Women’s Health Week will have the first true focus on endometriosis. 

And then that brings me to the last of the areas, because recognition, medical training is all fundamental. The trick is where we ultimately want to get to. 

It is a difficult challenge to crack, but we have cracked leukaemia, we are making immense progress on breast cancer, we have made huge progress on so many other areas, never solved perfectly, but extraordinary outcomes. 

Hepatitis C, which has taken 800 lives, a new drug Epclusa, which has come onto the PBS, will cure 90 per cent of people, 90 per cent of people. So we can make progress in this area.

So we will begin with a targeted call for research under the Medical Research Future Fund that will come out of the national action plan, and then we’ll announce the form of that and we’ll take your guidance over the coming months.

And, as a down-payment on that, I want to announce a grant to the University of Queensland, led by Professor Grant Montgomery, of $160,000, for (inaudible) diagnosis for genomics research, and then for the development of initial research on better treatments aiming ultimately at the potential for a cure. 

It will not happen overnight. It will be a grand journey, but it’s a journey we are all on. We thank you, we acknowledge you, and today is your long-overdue day.

Nerlande Lahens: 'Yes, all human beings are people', Cange Declaration - 2001

24 August 2001, Cange, Haiti

This declaration was read by Nerlande Lahens on behalf of patients in Cange, Haiti who had benefited from Partners in Health providing free treatment. It's a plea on behalf of poor people around the globe. It's featured in the Partner's in Health documentary, Bending the Arc. 

We, the patients of Zanmi Lasante (Partners in Health) in Cange, have a declaration we would like to put before all of you. It is we who are sick; it is therefore we who take the responsibility to declare our suffering, our misery, and our pain, as well as our hope. We hear many poignant statements about our circumstances, but we feel compelled to say something more categorical and more resounding than what we have heard.

We, the patients of Partners in Health, are fortunate to receive medication and health care even if we do not have money. Many of our health problems have been resolved with the medications. Given how bad off we used to be, we have greatly benefited. But while we feel fortunate to receive the medications, we feel sad for others who don't receive the same treatment we do.

In addition to our health problems, we have other tribulations. Even while preoccupied with being sick, we still have the problem of paying for housing. We have trouble finding employment. We remain concerned about sending our children to school, and every day we face the distressful reality that we cannot find the means to support them. Not being able to feed our children is the greatest challenge faced by mothers and fathers all over the nation of Haiti. We have learned that such calamities occur in other countries as well. As we reflect on all these tragedies we must ask: is not every human being a person?

Yes, all human beings are people. It is we, the afflicted, who are speaking. We have come together in Cange to expose the difficulties facing the sick. We also have some ideas in our knapsacks that we would like to share with you who are in authority, to see what you can do to resolve the health problems of the poor.

We have a message for all those who are concerned about us and who care about our health: we would like to thank you for the heavy load you carry with us.

When we the sick, who are living with AIDS, speak on the subject of "Health and Human Rights," we are aware of two rights that ought to be indivisible, inalienable. Those who are sick should have the right to health care. We who are already infected believe in prevention too. But prevention will not cure those who are already sick. We need treatment when we are sick, but for the poor there are no clinics, no doctors, no nurses, no health care. Furthermore, the medications that are available are too expensive. For HIV treatment, for example, we see in the newspaper that it should cost less than $600 per year. Although that is what is quoted in the press statements, here in a poor, small country like Haiti, it costs twice as much.

The right to health is the right to life. Everyone has a right to live. That means if we were not living in misery but in poverty, we would not be in this predicament today. Having no resources is a great problem for poor people, especially for women and those with small children. This is what in our abject Haitian reality is recognized as "the very struggle for life which inherently destroys life"; that is, as we scrape for life, we encounter death.

If everyone had a right to food, education, health—the way it ought to be—we would not be in such dire straits today. It is imperative that we resolve the problems of poor or no roads, water, and electricity so that everyone may live like a human being.

Why are they destroying us so? Is it because we are the poorest that they do not take our survival into consideration? Is it because we are the poorest that we are marginalized, that they do not care about us?

We have a message for the people who are here and for those who are able to hear our plea. We are seeking your solidarity. The battle we are engaged in—to find adequate care for those with AIDS, tuberculosis, and other illnesses—is the same as the combat that has been waged by other victimized people over time so everyone can live as a human being.

For those who are listening today, we have another message: this message is for those who manufacture medications. We would like to encourage you to develop and generate medications and to continue doing research. But if you do not lower the prices, we, the abject poor, will not be able to buy the medicines essential to our survival and, inevitably, we will get even sicker. We will continue to die before your very eyes, fully aware that our already insufferable situation grows worse every day.

We are making an appeal to you, Mrs. Titide (Haiti's then first lady, Mildred Aristide, who was in attendance). We, the patients of Cange, take our hats off to you for your pronouncements on our behalf at the United Nations meeting. We know you have the conviction and the will; we know you are fighting for US. Nonetheless, we ask that the government make more of an effort to rally around those of us who are sick by helping to provide us with good doctors, good nurses, good medications. We dispatch this same request to the minister of Health. It would be wise for you who are in authority to do this work quickly, before more of us who are poor die.

We have a message for all those who are concerned about us and who care about our health: we would like to thank you for the heavy load you carry with us. We who are sick love you very much, and we ask you to hang in there, to persevere with us. We recognize that it is not easy to find dedicated people like you. We are speaking specifically about the "accompagnateurs," auxiliaries, nurses, doctors, administrators and everyone all around who attends to us, including all those who cook, wash, and iron for us.

We have a message for you who suffer from the same sickness as we do. We would like to tell you not to get discouraged because you do not have medications. We pledge to remain steadfast in this fight and never to tire of fighting for the right of everyone to have necessary medications and adequate treatment.

We also have a message for the big shots—for those from other countries as well as from Haiti, and from big organizations like the World Bank and USAID. We ask you to take consciousness of all that we continually endure. We too are human beings, we too are people. We entreat you to put aside your egotism and selfishness, and to stop wasting critical funds by buying big cars, constructing big buildings, and amassing huge salaries.

Please also stop lying about the poor. It has been alleged that we don't know how to tell time and that is the reason we are ineligible or unworthy of medications that have to be taken at scheduled intervals. Stop accusing us unjustly and propagating erroneous assumptions about our right to health and our unconditional right to life. We are indeed poor, but just because we are poor does not automatically mean we are also stupid!

It is our ardent wish that this message not be put aside or relegated to the files as just another paper document. As Haitian popular wisdom asserts, "As long as the head is not cut off, the hope of wearing a hat remains."

Edwin Cameron: 'The biggest problem is stigma. Stigma, stigma, stigma, stigma!'21st Annual AIDS Conference - 2016

17 July 2016, Durban, South Africa

I'm really very, very pleased to be here today and I'm very, very pleased that this has taken place. This is an issue which should have a greater prominence in this conference.

We know that the central issue in this epidemic- we know medically and socially, what to do. We know what to do. We know that HIV can be medically managed. I've been on antiretrovirals for almost 19 years. I'm fitter and healthier than I was in 1997. We've got the world's biggest antiretroviral treatment program publicly provided in South Africa. We know that if we can get to enough people, the algorithm showed, if we can get everyone tested and everyone treated, in South Africa, we've committed from September to two important things: Which is to treat everyone with HIV and secondly, as importantly, to give sex workers pre-exposure prophylaxis. Are there any sex workers here?

Audience member: Yes!

Well done, ma'am!

I'm so proud of you. And I'm proud of our country. I'm proud of our country, that we're going to be providing people whose work is one of the most difficult and dangerous, and despised occupations, and one that deserves our support and our respect and our love with pre-exposure prophylaxis.

All of that we know. We even know how we can try to persuade people. Prevention is more difficult. We don't know what to do about prevention, ladies and gentlemen. I always refer to the fact that by 196 1- 10 year after Sir Richard Doll published his ground breaking articles inThe Lancet and the British Journal of Medicine about the link between cancer and cardiopulmonary disease and smoking - by the end of that decade, the governments of North America and Western Europe had accepted that smoking causes cancer. Smoking in the United States - 44%. Where is smoking in the United States now, anyone tell me?

Eighteen percent

So don't tell me ... Don't come to Africa and say, "Why don't those girls in the townships just use condoms? 'Cause we're talking about health seeking behaviour, we're talking about health seeking choices. So, I accept prevention from the broad mind that we know how to manage it, but medically and otherwise, physiologically, virologically, we know exactly what to do.

The biggest problem is stigma. Stigma, stigma, stigma, stigma. Stigma remains a barrier to prevention, it remains a barrier to behaviour change, it remains a barrier to people accessing treatment. Stigma is causing deaths, we know that. Because people are too scared to test. We, in this country, still have between 150,000 and 180,000 deaths from HIV every year, linked often with TB, also an intractably hard disease, much more medically difficult to deal with than HIV. But the cause of the undiagnosed cases of HIV, the cause of the untreated cases of AIDS is stigma.

Beyond Blame has offered today a rare and a crucial opportunity to build the movement that tackles that stigma frontally. Back in 2008, on the final day of the International AIDS Conference in Mexico, I called for a sustained and vocal campaign against HIV criminaliation. Along with many other activists, I hoped that that conference eight years ago would result in a major international resistance movement to misguided criminallaws and prosecution. And I want to credit Edwin J. Bernard, have you got credit today, Edwin? Come and stand in the front. Have you got credit?

Edwin Bernard:

Thank you.

The difference between me and activists like Edwin is that they don't get the judicial salary and the free car. So you take all the credit, Edwin. I really, really honestly mean that. And you working with us, you, ladies and gentlemen, are working with us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I bring honour and credit to you for doing that in difficult circumstances.

The work of HIV Justice Worldwide, who put together this conference, shows how far we've come. The fact that you had such a successful meeting is itself, a signal of our success.

The movement against these laws and prosecutions, which started a decade ago, is really gaining strength and some heartening outcomes. As you've heard today, laws are being repealed, they've be enmodernised, they've been struck down. From Kenya to Switzerland, from the state of Victoria in Australia, to the state of Colorado in the United States.

I've been living with HIV for over 30 years, ladies and gentlemen. It is especially fitting for me to be able to note that much of the necessary advocacy for this, has been undertaken by civil society. Can I ask, how many government officials are there in the room today? Put up your hands. There, we've outed you, sir!

We're very proud of you. One government official; we pay honour to you. Thank you for coming. And you too, ma'am. Three. Yep, three government officials. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, you are civil society activists ... every single major breakthrough for treatment, for governmental action against criminal laws, against stigma, has been driven by civil society activists.

Since the beginning of the HIV epidemic 35 long years ago, policy makers and politicians had been under sore temptation to punish us for the fact that we have HIV. Sometimes they have been propelled by public opinion. Sometimes they themselves have not justly propelled public opinion. But they've tried to find, in punitive approaches, a quick solution.

There's no quick solution, ladies and gentlemen. And one way has been this particularly hyper stigmatising way of HIV criminalisation: criminal laws against people living with HIV who don't declare that they have HIV, or to make potential or perceived exposure or transmission that occurs, when it is not deliberate, criminal offences.

Most of these laws are appallingly broad. I've been working this week with Section 79 of the Zimbabwe Criminal Code. Where are our Zimbabwean brothers and sisters?

Is there anyone here who was involved in the case of Pitty Mpofu? I'll come to it in a moment. But appallingly broad. If you do anything that puts anyone at risk of HIV exposure, you are guilty of deliberate transmission of HIV. We've heard today on the panel, I believe, very moving accounts, deeply moving accounts about people who have survived the hyper stigmatsing assault of these laws. We also know a very helpful fact, ladies and gentlemen, that scientific evidence about how HIV is transmitted and how low the risk of transmitting the virus is, is the key way.

People come to South Africa and they speak about President Mbeki, who disregarded evidence, who would not accept the overwhelming scientific proof that HIV caused AIDS, and much more importantly, that if AIDS was virally caused, if its aetiology was viral, that you could treat it. And they look condescendingly at President Mbeki - but Western governments all over, Australia, North America and the rest of Africa, African governments, in equal measure to President Mbeki, are ignoring scientific evidence.

The last 20 years has seen a massive shift in the management of HIV. It is now completely medically manageable, as I've said. I was dying of AIDS 19 years ago in November 1997. I had access to antiretroviral treatment.

Nineteen years later, as I've said, I'm stronger than I was as a younger man then. Despite thisprogress, despite the progress in prevention, treatment, and care, that overwhelming issue remains, which is stigma. And I want to mention a difficult issue and an important issue, which is the internalised form of stigma.

I'm glad that there is going to be quite a lot of attention here. Ladies and gentlemen, internalised stigma is when we as people with HIV or at risk of it, take deeply within,to the recesses of our own consciousness and subconsciousness, the hatred, the ostracism, the fear, the rejection, the prejudice, the discrimination of the external world, and that often is a causative effect when people don't get treatment, when they don't get testing. It's a hard phenomenon to describe. It's hard to act against but its powerful effect on our epidemic must be recognised.

The enactment and enforcement of laws that criminalise HIV, even the threat of their enforcement, fuels the fires of stigma. It fuels the fires of internalised stigma. It reinforces the idea, both externally and internally of those with HIV and at risk of it,that HIV is shameful, that it is a contamination, that it is disgraceful, that thosewho have it are criminals, that they're vectors for passing on the disease. And by reinforcing stigma, HIV criminalisation makes it much more difficult for those at risk of HIV to access testing and prevention. It makes it more difficult for them to talk openly about living with the virus and to be tested and to be treated and to be counselled to behavioural change. I know that I'm preaching to the converted here, but HIV criminalisation is profoundly bad policy. There is no evidence that it works. Instead, it sends out misleading and stigmatising messages. It undermines the remarkable scientific advances and proven public health strategies that we know are effective in dealing with this epidemic.

In 1997, the Chair of the Justice Portfolio Committee in South Africa's Parliament, Mr. Johnny de Lange , called for laws to criminalise HIV. Our epidemic was burgeoning. Treatment was not yet available except to the privileged few like me, who fell severely ill at the end of that year. And of course, you take the easy fix. You pass a law. You pass a law that targets those with HIV. Mr. De Lange was a powerful man. He steered a lot of laws through Parliament at that time, including our version of minimum sentencing laws, which are now being reconsidered in America but not yet reconsidered here. He steered unbailable offences laws through Parliament. He did a lot of legislative steering.

But very fortunately, the matter was referred to a committee of the South African Law Reform Commission, which was chaired at the time by Justice Ismail Mahomed. He asked me to chair the committee, and one of our projects was a project on the criminalisation of HIV. It's worth getting the report, ladies and gentlemen. I don't say this in vanity, because most of the work was done by a superb lawyer and researcher at the Law Reform Commission called Anna-Marie Havenga, so I claim no credit for the report. I claim credit for editing it and for steering it. But that report is worth downloading. It's a 200 - page report that exhaustively looks at all the options. It's 20 years old now, 18 years old, but we decided against criminalisation.

You know what was the pivotal breakthrough? We had a two-day conference where we called all the civil society organisations together in Pretoria to debate this issue. We called especially the organisations dealing with women and with children's rights. We called those who sought protection for women, who sought the prevention of paediatric HIV, and we realised by the end of the second day, we had a unanimous consensus that these laws were bad for women. They were bad for children. That those targeted by these laws are the women themselves, and it's been borne out. Many of the first prosecutions in Africa had been prosecutions of women. The first prosecution under Section 79 of the Zimbabwe Criminal Law Amendment Act, which I've mentioned before, was of a woman, when her partner went and laid a charge against her.

So we decided against it Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to be rude about Canada. Let me summarise. Where's Richard? It's so nice to be rude about Canada. Even though Richard [Elliot, Executive Director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network] tried to make Canada sensible,

There's been a decision recently of the Zimbabwe Constitutional Court, a full panel of seven judges where they refused to declare this appalling law .... It's an appallingly broad and vague law. They said they're not going to rule it unconstitutional. And the premise is that everyone with HIV has got to disclose. I want to give you the quote. Paragraph 12 of the judgement:

“Public policy requires of a person with HIV that he make full disclosure to his intended partner, in order to afford that partner the opportunity to make an informed decision." Ladiesand gentleman, I ask why? Why? Why does someone with HIV, either who's on treatment or who's going to take appropriate prevention measures, have to disclose? That's the premise. And that - Richard Elliott, I won't make you stand - is the premise of[the] Mabior [decision].

Obviously it's shameful. Did I say shameful? A bad, bad, bad, bad, bad unanimous decision of the Canadian Supreme Court, which I equate with the judgement andthe reasoning in State vs Pitty Mpofu. Pitty Mpofu's challenge failed. And Mabior ... Mr. Mabior did not transmit HIV. He was on successful antiretroviral therapy. He did not disclose his HIV. He was found, in effect, guilty of rape, because he didn't disclose.

Richard, you argued the case; I honour you and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network for your valiant attempts. I was in Canada just before the case was argued. Was it 2012? And you were full of hope. You werefull of hope. We now know there's been a study released last week, which shows that 58,000 instances of serodiscordant intercourse have not led to a single transmission of HIV. That was known to the nine justices of the Supreme Court of Canada at the time, but the evidence has been mounting up even more incontrovertibly, since then.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me wrap up. I want to congratulate you for being at this conference today. I want you to feel energised. I want you to feel informed and empowered and energised to take out into this conference today the message of today's meeting. And when Edwin and I were debating what I should say, I wanted to add something to his suggestions for my speech. And what I wanted to add was the fact that we must not let our administrators and officials and politicians arrive at this conference. They arrive, ladies and gentleman, with cars. And they arrive with delegations. And they go back to their countries, 30 of them in Africa, with criminal laws that target us irrationally, unscientifically, stigma enhancingly, stigma magnifyingly.

We must not allow them that peace and comfort. We must challenge them.

We must take the message of this conference out of your meeting today into the halls, into the podiums, and into the individual meetings with those people. Find the ministers and the officials from the African countries that target. We have suffered no harm in this country, because we didn't stigmatise. We did the right thing.

Those countries must do the right thing. They must repeal those laws. And your energy today, your vision, andyour activism, will make sure that that happens. Thank you

Simone Clements: 'Mummy, am I going to heaven?' Hayden's story, Redkite charity night - 2017

7 September 2017, Sofitel, Melbourne, Australia

Redkite is a charity that raises money for families who have a child who has received a cancer diagnosis. The corporate quiz is their big fundraiser. Simone is the mother of Hayden. Video of speech embedded above.

Good evening Everyone,

My name is Simone Clements and I have been invited to talk to you tonight because our family has been a recipient of RedKite’s compassion, kindness and financial assistance. 

You may recognise us from TV,  New Idea magazine or advertising material but more recently from the National news and Newspapers as we are the family that had both of our cars stolen out of our driveway on a day we needed to get to the Royal Children’s Hospital for an MRI for our son.

You see we have a little boy Hayden he is 6 years old and he was diagnosed with and inoperable, incurable brain tumour nearly two years ago and this is our story......

A few weeks after the twins 5th birthday Hayden began to complain that he couldn’t use his left hand and arm whilst dressing, immediately we sensed that something neurological was going on but we still had hope that maybe it was an injury.

We didn’t want to panic so we took him the Dr but when they suggested we take him to the Royal Children’s Hospital immediately, we knew it was serious and were overwhelmed with emotion.

As we raced him into the Royal Children’s hospital we began discussing the worst case scenario and preparing ourselves for what was to come. Upon arriving at the hospital he was rushed into a CT scan revealing a 4cm tumour in his brain stem. I remember feeling devastated, sick and barely able to breathe. I tried to be brave and I held it together in front of Hayden but eventually I was overcome with grief and shock and I had to leave the room. My knees went weak and I remember sobbing on the emergency department floor.

Nothing could take away my pain, it hurt so much.  I was grieving for the life that I had envisaged for our son and fearing the unknown.   Eventually, I pulled myself together and realised that all these feelings had to drive me to do whatever it was going to take to get our son through this journey. That became our family mantra, “Whatever it takes...”

I stand here tonight so very proud of our family and the resilience we have shown bravely fighting this beast we call cancer. We took our inspiration from Hayden he is a hero, a little champion. He endured 36 rounds of chemo in 12 months, lost all mobility on his left side, put up with painful procedures, surgeries, MRI’s, x-rays, ultrasounds, examinations, countless blood tests, in and out of hospital for two years, powered through his rehab sessions even when he felt like giving up or it was too hard, he just smiled and got on with it impressing everyone with his attitude and charm.  

If you would like to watch his brave fight you can watch it on youtube called Hayden’s Journey. It’s a 30 minute glimpse into the 2 year struggle for a child diagnosed with a brain tumour.

I don’t know how he did what he did and I don’t know how we have survived the past 2 years but one thing I do know, we couldn’t have done it without our community, the kindness of strangers and the support that RedKite provided our family.

Cancer affects every aspect of your family’s life physically, emotionally, financially and psychologically. RedKite provided our family with much needed resources to manage our grief, counselling for our well being and made sure we didn’t have the extra stress of finding funds to pay bills, petrol, groceries and ongoing medical costs.

Funds raised for RedKite on nights like tonight for families like ours have contributed towards our bills, school fees, medications, rehabilitation equipment,  mobility aids, safety items in our house, Physio, OT , Dr and Therapy costs, psychologists, house cleaning and babysitters for our other children just to name a few. 

The contributions of individuals and companies are greatly appreciated by families like ours. I just can not begin to express our gratitude for all that RedKite have done for our family during such a difficult time.

One night last week Hayden’s twin sister was snuggling a bunny that was given to her she calls it her worry bunny and she told me it wasn’t working. I said to her sometimes you need to tell grown ups your worries and that helps too. She took a breath and said softly, “I need to tell you I have a worry and it’s about Hayden. I braced myself and then she said it, ‘I’m worried that Hayden going to die from his brain tumour.” My heart sank and I responded with, ‘I know sweetheart this is my worry too, but the doctors are doing everything they can to help him and you know what, every day that we have him in our lives we need to tell him we love him and make the most of our time together.’ Young children shouldn’t have such worries weighing heavily on their minds.

Twins Carlee and Hayden

Carlee and Hayden

Another day that nearly broke me was when I was walking with Hayden in the wheelchair to get some fresh air he was so sick this day after chemo and he looked up at me and asked, ‘Mummy am I going to heaven?’ I didn’t know what to say so I just said, “Not today sweetheart hopefully not anytime soon.’

So as you can see dealing with childhood cancer these past two years has been pretty traumatic but knowing we had the support of people like you, companies, businesses and RedKite definitely relieved the pressure and we didn’t feel so alone. The financial aid that you generate goes a long way in helping families like ours and critically ill children.

We will never forget your kindness, generosity, well wishes and support.

From the bottom of our hearts and on behalf of families dealing with Childhood Cancer. 

Thankyou.

You can help Redkite provide essential support for families like Simone's by donating here. You can support Hayden's GoFundMe page here.

Steven Pinker: 'Unfortunately the 'f*cking' in 'f*cking brilliant' is an adverb', The Science of Swearing - 2008

10 September 2008, Warwick's, La Jolia, California, USA

I'm going to switch now from cognition to emotion, and the puzzle of language that I'll start with comes from an event five years ago when NBC broadcast the Golden Globes awards on live television, and accepting an award on behalf of the group U2,  Bono said and I quote: 'this is really really fucking brilliant'.

Now the networks did not bleep out the offending words, and the switchboards lit up and the case went to the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, which has jurisdiction over the airwaves. In considering the matter they decided not to fine the network, because according to their guidelines, indecency is, quote, 'material that describes or depicts sexual or excretory organs or activities' and the 'fucking in fucking brilliant' is 'an adjective or expletive to emphasize an exclamation'.

Well a number of conservative politicans were enraged, and they filed legislation designed to close this loophole. I downloaded one of these bills from the uS Congressional website, and I'm going to read it to you right now:

House resolution 3687 - The Clean Airwaves Act

The House resolves that section 1464 of Title 18 United States code be amended (1) by inserting (a) before 'Whoever and (2) to the term profane used with respect to language includes the words shit, piss, fuck, cunt, asshole, and the phrases cock sucker, mother fucker and ass hole, compound use, (including hyphenated compounds) , of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle and infinitive forms).

Unfortunately the fucking in 'fucking brilliant' is an adverb, and that's the one part of speech they forgot to include.

This is a brilliant lecture on what swearing is about. If anyone has a full transcript I'd love to post it.

Shelli Whitehurst: 'I live in a place of constant unknowing, and that's what cancer feels like', Tour de Cure Snow Ball - 2015 ',

June 2015, Sydney, Australia

For over 12 months, I've been fighting stage 4 bilateral breast cancer with widespread metastases to the bones. I'm fiercely strong and I'm independent, and I find it hard to ask for help. I smile and I say fine a lot, and I love to win. These are now my greatest weaknesses.

I had the most perfectly crafted speech a week ago that I was going to tell you like a TED speech, you know, the ones that make you laugh and cry, and you're gonna all give me a big standing ovation and it was going to be fantastic ...

That speech is bullshit.

Because on Monday everything changed. My cancer came back, and it's time for me to stop looking like I'm okay with having cancer. I'm not okay with having cancer. It's time for me to talk about what it feels like to have cancer, and tonight I'm calling it my cancer 'coming out'. I was in hospital on Monday, if any of you were following my Facebook you would have known this, recovering, and I was about to leave the hospital as the revolving door of doctors started and I knew something was wrong.

By the way, I love all of my doctors. They are incredible.

I was told that my cancer was no longer stable and that we would have to start new treatments and new drugs in two weeks. On Tuesday I cried. By Wednesday, I was bored with being sad and angry, so I gave myself a deadline by 8:00 a.m. Thursday that I would start pulling myself together and getting on with life.

It's so hard, because I've just spent 12 months fighting to get here, and now I'm back to square one. If the drugs work, we might have years. If they don't work, I might have 12 months. This is what cancer feels like: You constantly have no answers. You always have questions. You are constantly worried that this day is going to come, and it did, and again, and it will come again, and you just constantly want more time.

Thursday night I got on the plane with my brother to come to Sydney. I was so broken. I fell asleep the whole way, and he ate my cheese and biscuits while I was asleep.

Today I haven't even been out of bed. I used all my energy so that I could attend, and as I said to many people tonight, they were like, "Why did you come, you could have not?" Oh, my God, I would have had the worst migraine ever because I love the Tour de Cure family, and it would have killed me worse than the cancer to be at home and not be at this event tonight.

Nothing is ever going to be okay for me. I have stage 4 metastatic cancer. But I'm not feeling sorry for myself. As you all know, that's boring.

I'm not shaming anyone for not knowing any better, but it's now my job to educate. The most asked question I am asked is, "What can I do for you? I want to do more' I usually say, before today, "I don't need anything. I'm fine," 'cause I don't like asking for help. But this answer has changed. This answer is now, please don't forget me. I need hugs. I need my hand held. I need to be allowed to feel vulnerable, and I need to be allowed to cry. I need to be able to tell you this, and I need you to visit me. I need you to Facetime me, and I need you to Facebook me. I need you to pop me a note in the post, and I need you to keep calling me even if I say no. I need you to stalk me, because it's hard keeping myself up when alone, you know, other people not being there as well.

The second biggest thing that cancer does and feels is it consumes you. When it consumes can feel devastating.  What consumes you runs you. When you know me, you'll know I love business, I love ideas, I love making things, I love entrepreneurship. I am very lucky to have very good friends. Dylan, Matt and Chris. They knew that one way to avoid cancer consuming me was to give me a project that consumed me, so we created the project called Kit for Cancer. Some of you may know it. Now, you all know about it. When you're diagnosed with cancer, the worst possible moment happens, and nobody knows what to give you and nobody knows what to say to you. We designed a kit full of beautifully curated items for patients by patients. It is the gift you never want to get, and it is the gift you never want to give, but it is here when you need it. It is something that family and friends can buy for their loved ones when they are told, "You have cancer."

I thank you, guys, for pushing me through and working on this project with me so I could forget, most of the days, that I have cancer. This week, I hate cancer. I hate it. I hate fighting, and I want a day off. I'm tired of being positive and happy and energetic, and I'm sick of being okay and trying to make everyone else feel okay. I'm exhausted. This is what cancer feels like. This is what cancer feels like, and cancer patients will never tell you that it feels like. This is what it feels like every day.

There is no cure for my cancer. There is not much money allocated, either, to researching the kind of cancer that I have. This cancer will kill me. This means that I may not see my niece turn four. I may never go on another Tour to Cure, which would break my heart, 'cause that was awesome. I may never see the legacy of Kit for Cancer succeed. I may never go on another date with a boy again. I may never travel to see my best friends in the USA. I was meant to leave next week, and that's all gone on hold.

But then again, I might. I don't know, because I live in a place of constant unknowing, and that's what cancer feels like. I'm fighting this cancer now on the inside, but there is not a moment that Chantel and the team aren't fighting harder. She surrounded me with the best people in the industry, and they fight hard to make sure that I can stand here today. While we may not be thankful for the cancer, we need to be grateful for the doctors, the researchers, the nurses and the treatments that give me the chance to fight this. If there ever comes a time where the treatments stop working, please know I will always be grateful for having lived a great life with no regrets and now having you all in it.

As we go into the auction right now, and you're all having bubbles, which I wish I could drink but I can't because it tastes awful, and if anyone knows me, champagne is my thing. If I'm given 12 months, I will be going to champagne. I will drink it even if it tastes awful, and drink every single ounce of it. The other thing I will do, of course, is I promised my niece I would take her to Disneyland, and that will happen. We will [inaudible 00:07:26] every single day. As you're thinking about spending money tonight on some of these epically cool items, cross your fingers and know that maybe just one of those dollars or some of those dollars that you're raising for Tour de Cure just might go into a breakthrough drug that might make me stay alive.

Kindness is free. You can sprinkle that shit everywhere, okay? And broken crayons still colour.   

Geoff Ginter: 'You have been the single greatest threat to my family', Town Hall address to GOP's Tom MacArthur - 2017

10 May 2017, Willingboro, New Jersey, USA

My wife was diagnosed with cancer when she was 40 years old. She beat it, but every day—every day—she lives with it. She thinks about it. Every pain, every new something going on somewhere, is it coming back? Is this cancer? Do I have it again? Is it gonna kill me this time? Is it gonna take me away from my children? Speaking of which: my children. Both have pre-existing conditions from birth. One cardiac, one thyroid. You have been the single greatest threat to my family in the entire world. You are the reason I stay up at night. You are the reason that I cannot sleep. What happens if I lose my job?

Jimmy Kimmel: 'No parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their child's life', Monologue for Billy - 2017

 1 May 2017, California, USA

I try not to get emotional, but it was a scary story. And before I go into it, I want you to know it has a happy ending. O.K.? So when I’m telling this, don’t get too upset. Leave that to me ... 

Now more doctors and nurses and equipment come in, and it’s a terrifying thing. My wife is back in the recovery room; she has no idea what’s going on, and I’m standing in a room full of worried-looking people—kind of like right now ....

We had atheists praying for us, O.K.?” he said. “We had people who do not believe in God praying to him. And I hate to say it; even that son of a bitch Matt Damon sent flowers ... 

 I want to say one other thing. President Trump, last month, proposed a $6 billion cut in funding to the NIH. And thank God our Congressmen made a deal last night to not go along with that. They actually increased funding by $2 billion, and I applaud them for doing that. Because more than 40% of the people who would have been affected by those cuts at the National Institute of Health are children, and it would have a major impact on a lot of great places, including Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. Which is so unbelievably sad to me. We were brought up to believe that we live in the greatest country in the world, but until a few years ago, millions and millions of us had no access to healthcare at all.

Before 2014, if you were born with congenital heart disease like my son was, there was a good chance you’d never be able to get health insurance because you had a pre-existing condition. You were born with a pre-existing condition. And if your parents didn’t have medical insurance, you might not live long enough to even get denied because of a pre-existing condition. If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make. I think that’s something that whether you’re a Republican or a democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right? I mean, we do.

Whatever your party, whatever you believe, whoever you support, we need to make sure that the people who are supposed to represent us, the people who are meeting about this right now in Washington, understand that very clearly. Let’s stop with the nonsense. This isn’t football. There are no teams. We are the team. It’s the United States. Don’t let their partisan squabbles divide us on something every decent person wants. We need to take care of each other. I saw a lot of families there and no parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their child’s life. It just shouldn’t happen. Not here. So. Anyway. Thank you for listening. I promise I’m not going to cry for the rest of the show.

Lupita Nyongo'o: "What is fundamentally beautiful, is compassion", Black Women in Hollywood event - 2014

27 February 2014, Hollywood, California, USA

I received a letter from a girl, and I'd like to share out, just a small part of it with you, dear Lupita it reads I think you, you're really lucky to be this black but yet this successful in Hollywood over night. I was just about to buy Dencia's Whitenicious cream to lighten my skin. When you appeared on the world map and saved me.

My heart bled a little when I read those words. I could never have guessed that my first job out of school would be so powerful. In and of itself and that it would propel me to be such an image of hope in the same way that the women of The Color Purple were to me. 

I remember a time when I too felt un-beautiful. I put on the TV and only saw pale skin. I got teased and taunted about my night-shaded skin and my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter skinned.

The morning would come and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin, that I would refuse to look down at myself until I was in front of a mirror because I wanted to see my fair face first. And everyday I experienced the same disappointment of being just as dark as I had been the day before.

I tried to negotiate with God. I told him i would stop stealing sugar cubes at night if he gave me what I wanted.

I would listen to my mother's every word. [LAUGH] Sitting right there, and never lose my school sweater again, if he just made me a little lighter.

But, I guess God was unimpressed with my bargaining chips because he never listened. And when I was a teenager, my self-hate grew worse, as you can imagine, happens with adolescents. My mother reminded me often that she thought I was beautiful. But that was no consolation, she's my mother. Of course she's suppose to think I'm beautiful.

And then, Alek Wek came on the international scene [SOUND] [LAUGH] a celebrated model. She was dark as night. She was on all the runways and in every magazine and everyone was talking about how beautiful she was, even Oprah called her beautiful and that made it a fact.

I couldn't believe that people were embracing a woman who looked so much like me as beautiful. My complexion had always been an obstacle to overcome, and all of a sudden Oprah was telling me it wasn't.

It was perplexing and I wanted to reject it because I had begun to enjoy the seduction of inadequacy. But, a flower couldn't help but bloom inside me. When I saw a Alek, I inadvertently saw a reflection of myself that I could not deny. Now, I had a spring in my step because I felt more seen. More appreciated by the far-away gatekeepers of beauty.

But around me, the preference for light skin prevailed to the beholders that I thought mattered, I was still unbeautiful. And my mother, again, would say to me, you can't eat beauty. It doesn't feed you. And these words played and bothered me. I really didn't understand them until finally I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or, or consume it was something that I just had to be.

And what my mother meant when she said you can't eat beauty was that. You can't rely on how you look to sustain you.What actually sustains us, what is fundamentally beautiful, is compassion for yourself, and for those around you that kind of beauty. That kind of beauty inflames the heart. And enchants the soul.

It is what got Patsy in so much trouble with her master. But it is also what has kept her story alive to this day. We remember the beauty of her spirit, even after the beauty of her body has faded away.

And so, I hope that my presence on your screens. And in magazine may lead you, young girl, on a similar journey. That you will feel the validation of your external beauty, but also, get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside. There is no shade in that beauty.

Thank you.

Connor Yates: 'I want to have friends, but making friends is hard for me', My Autism, School Speaking Competition - 2015

June 2015, Fort St John, British Columbia, Canada

Connor Yates delivered this speech to a school speech competition, which he won.

Today, I intend to talk about something about myself that I think is really important to share with everyone.

I have autism, and I want to tell you what it is, and what it is like living with it.

Autism is a social disorder that makes it hard to communicate and to make friends. I have trouble understanding what people think, and how they feel. This is a social skill I have trouble with.

An example of this is that I can say things and not realise that it hurts someone’s feelings.

You may ask me to stop, but I don’t understand that you may be getting frustrated.

Something else that I struggle with is getting frustrated when I can’t do something right away. For example, whenI try learning something new, if I don’t get it right away, I get upset and want to quit.

It feels like I will never get it, learn it, or be good enough at it.

Sometimes I will be stuck on an idea or event that happened, and this makes it harder to work. 

Another thing that I struggle with, is that sometimes I worry about asking for help and about what people will think about me.

Some common characteristics of autism are, little or no eye contact, preferring to be alone, trouble taking turns and blurting out.

If you’ve ever spoken to me, and it seems like I’m looking at everything but you?

This is because looking at you makes me uncomfortable.

I want to have friends, but making friends is hard for me.

I want somebody to play with, just like you do. I know it’s hard to be my friend becasue sometimes I don’t know what to say, and I end up saying something that hurts your feelings.

I find it really hard to be around a large group of people.

A large group of people can be my classmates, my friends, a party, my family, grocery shopping or going to a movie.

When I walk into a large group I can hear a lot of voices, they are really loud and overwhelming to me. Everyone is often running around, playing, talking and doing different things.

All of this is overwhelming to me, because I struggle to understand my surroundings.

When I go out I don’t want to be touched or held.

I often talk loud, or yell, so I don’t hear the other voices around me. I can become very argumentative, as I struggle to understand the other person’s emotions.

When I am overwhelmed, I don’t know that I am, even when people tell me, I struggle to believe them.

Because of all of this, I find it easier to just be alone and walk around.

I hope you understand more about me, because I want you to know more about my disorder.

Thank you.

Maddison: 'Dear cerebral palsy', Royal South Street Society Speech & Drama competition - 2016

11 August 2016, Ballarat, Victoria

In this speech, 14-year old Maddie, of Ballarat, won first place in Ballarat’s Royal South Street Society drama and speech competition with her piece, Dear Cerebral Palsy. It was published by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute web page for Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day.

Dear Cerebral Palsy,

Isn’t it amazing how one’s life can be so perfect, even if it is for just a moment, even if it is stricken with fantasies and dishonesty, whether that untruthfulness lies in the form of a gorgeous imaginary boyfriend or a well-functioning, able body? Then I remember you, my worst enemy, who runs through my veins and clouds my mind. Then I remember all the rubbish that you’ve put me through, all the rubbish no young girl should even have to think about let alone experience.

We have known each other since I came out of the womb. You have always been there, not a foot step behind me. As a young child I never quite understood what you were, let alone how much you would affect and impact my life. Now I’m an adolescent I can comprehend that you will never be gone and that I will never be able to escape your presence. I can now apprehend that you will always be suffocating me, you will always be intoxicating me with your disease.

You are always on my mind, I can never stop thinking about you. The nights are often the hardest. I lay awake drowning myself in my tears. I imagine the miserable future ahead of me. I listen to you tell me that boys will not love me, that I have no place on this earth, that I would be better off dead. I think back to the countless times I have named myself the sad girl, the mistake, the girl with nothing for her. I think back to all those times you have insulted me, isolated me, constricted me.

I think about all those times you would try to introduce me to depression, try to intertwine us as one, urging me to find the highest ledge or the sharpest blade.

I replay all the cruel things you say to me, informing me with such a despised and disgusted manner, that I am useless, worthless, a waste of space, unlovable.

My life has been bombed with oceans of obstacles, skies of despair and millions of questions at the hands of your mission to make my life a living hell. My life has consisted of your taunts, your orders and your ugliness.

But you, cerebral palsy, you will not defeat me, you will not rule and ridicule my life. I will take your presence as a gift because I know that you are a part of me for a reason. I will take your presence as a gift because you are what has shaped me into the bright, bubbly, determined, caring, compassionate girl I am today. You will not destroy me, you will empower me to be the best person I possibly can be.

Sincerely,

Maddison

You can donate to the Murdoch Institute's cerebral palsy register here, to advance knowledge about CP, which will provide better help and support for people with CP.

Debi Jackson: 'Mom, you know I'm really a girl, right? I'm a girl on the inside.', A Note to My Kid - 2014

2014, Unity Temple on the Plaza, Kansas City, USA

I'm the mom of the little girl called A.J. who was recently profiled in the Kansas City Star. As surprised as I was to find my family in the paper I'm also incredibly proud. My daughter is six years old she transitioned which means she changed her outward appearance from male to female and started living full-time as her true gender when she was 4.

Until that point she was quite a rough-and-tumble little boy with a buzzcut and a shark tooth necklace. But when she was 3, she asked her dad and I if we could buy her a princess dress.

We didn't buy the dress. We thought she might be going through a stage of liking bright or sparkly things and didn't want to waste money on something she would grow bored of in a week.

But she kept asking and I found out that she had a favorite princess dress she wore at daycare.

"What the heck?" we thought and we took her to the store to pick one out. Things didn't stop there. Over the next few months she started to wear that dress every single minute that she was at home. And then she asked for more: dresses, nightgowns, headbands, sparkly pink shoes and eventually even girls underwear.

We allowed some of those things but we drew the line at the undies. There were just some things we weren't comfortable with during this phase. But then I noticed her pushing down on her genitals a lot and I asked her what was wrong. Not having those parts, I assumed she might have a rash and was itchy, but her answer shocked me. She said that they bothered her and were in the way. She wanted them gone.

Thank God for Google because I immediately jumped on the computer and typed in a search... "four-year-old boy says genitals should be gone." What came back was a very short list of results but they all pointed to one thing: my child might be transgender.

I had never even heard the word "transgender" before and really didn't know what to think. We made an appointment with our pediatrician she recommended a child psychologist. But before we could even get an appointment my daughter- then my four-year-old son- said these words to me, "Mom, you know I'm really a girl, right? I'm a girl on the inside."

That moment changed my life. In the following months, she became more insistent. We saw the psychologist and an endocrinologist to make sure there wasn't a hidden medical issue. She became more determined to express herself by wearing those pink sparkly shoes to daycare. She wanted to go out for ice cream in a fairy dress and wings. Eventually, we couldn't hold her back. She was showing signs of depression, and refused to leave the house dressed as a boy.

The day I let her go to school in girl clothes, she was happier than I had seen in a very long time. The kids were great and the teachers were awesome. But then the kids went home, and told their parents and they won't so great after that.

Adult bigotry had influenced them. We lost most of our friends and some of our family. We basically went into hiding for about a year while my daughter grew out her hair to look like the girl that she is. When we emerged again, it was with a very happy and confident daughter.

When I tell our daughter's story, I hear the same uninformed comments over and over again, so I'd like to address a few of those now.

1. We are liberals pushing a gay agenda. Nope, sorry. I'm a conservative Southern Baptist Republican from Alabama.

2. We (or at least I because they always blame the mom) wanted a girl so we turned our child into one. Again no. I desperately wanted boys. The idea of raising a girl in today's world scares me to death. I'd much rather be responsible for raising a good boy who knows how to treat girls well than to be responsible for raising a girl who might only be interested in dating bad boys.

3. "Kids have no idea what they want or who they are. My kid wants to be a dog, should I let him?" That's up to you but I wouldn't. There is a profound difference between wanting to be something in imaginary play and in declaring who you are insistently, consistently, and persistently. Those are the three markers that set transgender children apart, and my daughter displayed all of them.

4. Kids shouldn't have to learn about sex at such a young age. Well, I agree so it's a good thing that being transgender has nothing to do with sex! Gender identity is strictly how a person views him or herself on the inside, and it is completely separate from who we are attracted to.

5. Transgender people are perverts and shouldn't be in the bathroom with "normal" people. I don't know what you go into a bathroom to do but I know what my daughter goes in there for... and it isn't to look around. It's to go into a stall, lock the door, and pee where no one else can see her.

Number 6. God hates transgender people. They are sinners and going to Hell. My God taught us to love one another. Jesus sought out those who others rejected. Some people choose to embrace biblical verses that appear to say being transgender is wrong. I choose to focus on verses like 1st Samuel 16:7 which says "But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.' "

My daughter is a girl in her heart. She knows it. God knows it. And that's good enough for me.

I’m the mom of a little girl called Ajay. Who was recently profiled in the Kansas City Star.

As surprised as I was to find my family in the paper, i was also incredibly proud.

My daughter is six years old. She transitioned, which means she changed her outward appearance from male to female and started living full time as her true gender, when she was four. Until that point she was quite a rough and tumble little boy with a buzz cut and a shark tooth necklace